The Unforgiven
by Fairlane
Summary: Out of prison and back on the streets, Tim Shepard has to fight for control of his gang, his turf, and his brother.
1. Default Chapter

Ponyboys POV

I leaned back against the fountain, watching the sun sink into the horizon. The park was dark and shadowed already, deserted. Darry had asked me not to go there after dark, and after everything that had been I could understand his fears. I looked at the deepening blue-black of the sky and figured I could get away with a few more minutes. I'd been at track practice, and didn't want to head home just yet. I pulled out my cigarettes and lit one up, the smoke hitting the back of my throat. I loved this time of night, the setting sun and the darkness of the trees, the silence around me. Sometimes when I came here alone I could almost feel Johnny beside me, and the sadness was so deep it was a kind of peace.

"Hey, Curtis!"

I jumped, turning wildly into the dark, and someone laughed nearby.

"Shoot Curtis, do I look like a fucking soc!"

"Curly, dammnit, don't sneak up on me." I muttered, embarrassed. What the hell was he doing in this side of town anyway? Tim had been inside altogether about twelve months now, and I had hardly seen Curly in that time. I'd heard he was doing his best to hold onto Tim's territory while he was gone, and I didn't envy him any. Tim's wasn't a reputation I'd want to have to live up to.

"You got a smoke?" he asked.

I offered him one from my pack, watched the spark from his match briefly illuminate his face. "What you doing over this way?"

He shrugged and leaned back against the fountain as well. "Just on my way to Bucks, bit of a party up there." I saw him smile in the dark, a taunting edge to it.

"You wanna come?"

"Nah, I better head home soon." I knew what Darry would have to say about me going to a party at Bucks, let alone with Curly Shepard.

"I guess you better" he said, his tone mocking again. I felt myself squirming a little. I didn't even want to go to the party, but Curly had a way of making me feel like a kid beside him.

"When's Tim getting out?" I asked him, making conversation.

"Next week."

Even Curly couldn't hide the underlying excitement in his voice, I guess even tough hoods could miss their big brothers.

He fiddled around beside me and a second later a match sparked again, an unmistakable smell filled the night air.

He sucked on the joint and offered it to me.

"Nah, I don't smoke" I said.

He shook his head. "You gonna make me smoke this whole thing by myself?"

He laughed softly, and I smiled too. Sometimes even more than I missed Johnny himself, I missed just having someone my own age to hang around with. Not that I could ever talk to Curly about the stuff me and Johnny used to talk about, but we still got on okay.

"How's things going over your way?" I asked him.

"Holding on" he answered briefly.

He didn't offer any more information, which maybe spoke more than anything he could say anyway. I couldn't imagine any of those downtown hoods would care to take orders from a kid.

He pinched off the end of the joint and pocketed it. "Don't tell Tim about that" he said suddenly.

"What, the dope?"

"Yeah, he ain't into it."

"Okay" I said, trying not to laugh. Maybe big brothers are the same no matter what side of the law they're on, but it was hard to picture Tim that way.

"So" Curly said, "you sure you don't wanna come along to this party?"

I glanced down at my watch, I still had a couple of hours until Darry would expect me in. I could just go along, hang with Curly a little, maybe play some pool, then head home. Sometimes I wanted to want the same things everybody else did.

Someone like Curly didn't care about good grades or running track or sunsets. He wouldn't care if he never got out of this neighborhood, never had a good job, never went out with a nice girl. I didn't know why the things that mattered to me seemed to be something unimaginable to everyone else.

"Okay, for a while."

"Alright, lets go" he sounded surprised.

"Hey" I said as we walked back across the lot. "Don't tell Darry I went and I won't tell Tim you smoke dope okay?"

I meant it as a joke, but he suddenly stopped and stared at me fiercely.

"I'll tell Darry whatever the fuck I like Curtis, but you tell Tim that and I will beat your fucking head in, got it?"

"Alright Curly" I snapped, angry that a kid my own age could intimidate me so much. What was his problem anyway, I couldn't see Tim caring too much about someone smoking dope, even if it was his brother.

"Hell Curtis," Curly said, his tone cheerful again. "You know what he done when he caught us playing chicken, remember?"

"That's right!" I laughed, remembering how he had glared at us. I remembered how Curly had looked too, the strange longing in his eyes as he smirked at his brother, daring him to do something.

"Big brothers aye" I said, thinking of Darry. Things were better between us, I think we were both getting used to our changed roles. We both tried harder, for our own sakes as much as Soda's. I guess we had all lost enough already.

Curly's idea of a 'bit of a party' seemed to be a little different to mine. I hesitated at the driveway; the party that had spilled into the parking lot looked wild enough.

"Come on, this looks wild!" Curly said, swaggering ahead of me. Inside was packed, and I shoved my way through, hoping no one took offence to being shoulder barged. Most of the people there were what I'd call hoods, not greasers. I know to most people there ain't no difference anyway, but if you'd ever been stared down by a hood, you'd understand the line isn't just imaginary.

I fought my way up to the bar and leaned against it beside Curly. The music and laughing and yelling were deafening and I scanned the room for anyone I knew as more than a passing acquaintance. Even Curly wasn't exactly what I would call a friend.

I saw Two-Bit across the smoke hazed room, standing against a wall beside the pool table with some blond girl leaning into him. I squinted, puzzled by his posture. Usually he'd be returning the flirting. The girl raised a hand to flick her hair off her shoulder and I recognized the gesture. It was Sylvia, Dally's old girlfriend. She cared nothing for him while he was alive, she had made that much clear, but since he had been gunned down by the police and attained legend status, anyone would think he'd been her husband. I guess for a girl like that, what might have been would always be better than what was real.

Just seventeen, and already looking at the past as the best she would ever have. I guess she was no different from most anyone here, for these young hoods, now was the glory days that would never come again.

No wonder Darry didn't want me here, suddenly I didn't want to be here myself. I shoved myself back from the bar, as Sylvia pointed and Two-Bit turned and followed her gaze, right at me.

"Here Pony" Curly shouted near my ear, shoving a glass into my hand.

I didn't even look to see what he'd given me, just took it and headed back outside. I stood on the steps by the door and leaned on the metal handrail, looking over the car park. I took a sip of the drink, wondering what it was.

"Hey Ponyboy, what you doing here?"

I shrugged as Two-Bit came to stand beside me.

"Curly asked me to come" I said, deliberately misunderstanding his question.

The grinding whine of a car engine being revved filled the parking lot, and I turned to see the first drift of smoke coming from under the tires of an Impala.

"Burnout!" someone yelled, and the lot filled with cheers and whoops of encouragement.

"Darry know you're here?" asked Two-Bit.

"Nah" I said, taking another sip of the drink. It was bitter and burnt my throat, like something that might be good for unblocking drains.

"Aww, you shouldn't be here" Two-Bit said quickly. "Ahh fuck, I hate saying shit like that, but really Pony…you shouldn't."

"Why not?" I asked, suddenly angry. "It's good enough for everyone else to be here. None of you think I can handle myself?"

"I know you can fight kid. But these boys is all older than you, you're in a goddamn bar, not a school dance."

His condensation pissed me off, and I took a bigger gulp of the drink.

"Curlys' here."

"Curly" Two-Bit repeated, laughing. "You know the other day I saw Curly Shepard on the poster for smart choices in life."

"Lay off Two-Bit" I growled. "You always gotta live up to your name?"

He flicked me round the ear and laughed again. "Best you be careful Pony."

Curly's POV

I should have sorted out a goddamn car myself, I should have known better than to trust fucking Wade to actually be organized.

I paced the footpath, so impatient and angry I couldn't stand still.

"Settle down would ya Curly" Wade called out, bent over the engine of his car. "I'm sorting it."

I didn't bother replying. Tim had already spent nine months in that fucking prison, not to mention the three he was on remand, he sure wasn't going to appreciate any time he had to spend waiting outside it to be picked up.

"Go and turn the key now would ya?" Wade asked me.

I sighed and went and twisted the key in the ignition, and the car suddenly shuddered and coughed to life. About goddamn time, we were gonna be half an hour late as it was. I got in the passenger seat and waited for Wade to get his shit together and get in. I couldn't wait for my brother to get out, I couldn't wait.

Shit like this didn't happen when Tim was around, he knew how to keep things under control.

As the miles rolled away behind us and the prison approached ever closer, I started thinking about how things would be.

I wondered if Tim would expect that time had stood still for all of us, like it had for him. So much had changed, it felt like forever since me and him had hung on the streets, gone to parties, had fights. I wondered if he would understand I wasn't the kid I'd been when he'd gone in.

"Guess we'll be having another party at Buck's tonight" Wade said.

I grinned and twisted in my seat, so much anticipation inside I felt almost sick. "I reckon he would have only just finished cleaning up from the last one."

That had been a good party alright, not as wild as most there, but still a good party. I never expected Ponyboy would actually come with me, and I wondered if his brothers had found out. I didn't even know when he'd gone home, I'd been too wasted too fast to know much of what had happened.

I could see the prison gates rising high into the sky as we approached, and felt my heart thudding slow and deep in my chest. I couldn't understand the strange kind of nervousness that was inside me, under the excitement.

I just wanted everything to be the same, I wanted Tim to be the hero I always thought he was.

He was standing out by the entrance, smoking and gazing at nothing, not looking impatient. I guess I'd been wrong, I guess when you done nine months already, another thirty minutes ain't nothing.

Prison hadn't changed him, not for the better or the worse. He just looked as he always did, cool and controlled, like I wished I knew how to.

Wade stopped the car and Tim came over as I got out.

"Hey kid" he said, looking at me without expression. Despite having known him all my life, there was a part of me that was still disappointed.

"Hey" I replied, standing by the idling car, wondering if I would always be the one that wanted so much from him.

I guess I don't just want everything to be the same.


	2. Fight Night

Disclaimer: S E Hinton owns The Outsiders.

* * *

Curlys' POV: 

Tim turned away from me and rested his arm across the roof of the car, his gaze on the prison behind us. Sometimes I just wanted to take a hammer to his fucking head, to get inside and see what he was thinking.

He might make the best poker player I ever saw, but he don't always make the best brother.

"Getting homesick already?" I asked him, trying to keep my tone light.

He spun to look at me and smiled slightly, his eyes still hard and distant.

"Let's go" he said, smacking his palm on the roof of the car.

He got in the car and I turned to follow where his gaze had been, at the tall brick building that had taken my brother from me for a year. A year and a lifetime, that's how it seemed. Maybe everything would just go back to how it had been, and maybe nothing would ever be the same. I wished I could be like Tim, I wished I could always know what I wanted, and I wished I could make everything I wanted happen.

"We're gonna go without you Curly" Tim called out the window to me.

I got in the car, because I wouldn't put it past him to just leave me there. Sometimes he looks at me and I know that he loves me, other times I think he would stick a knife in me just to prove he doesn't.

"How are things back home?" Tim asked as Wade pulled away from the curb.

Wade hesitated a moment before saying, "Aww, still the same. Same crazy shit."

Tim stayed silent, the kind of silence that fills the car, and I knew he hated not knowing everything that was happening.

"The Brumly boys are stepping on the Vipers turf" I told him, feeling some kind of twisted pride inside that I knew things he didn't.

"Yeah, they stepping on mine?"

He still thought it was his, of course he did. He thought everything was his, just because it was what he wanted.

Wade laughed, and I knew he was a little nervous. "You know, people try" he said.

That wasn't the half of it, Wade sure wasn't the gang leader Tim was. I had never understood why Tim had made Wade his second in command, but I knew my brother well enough to know he has a reason behind everything that he does, and while he was inside I had figured out what it was.

He hadn't made Wade his second in command because he thought he could take his place, he had done it because he knew he couldn't.

"You got a place to stay yet?" Wade asked him.

"Ain't thought about it. Wherever I hit the floor I guess."

"You can kick Curly off my couch and take that if you want" Wade said, lifting his eyes to glance at me in the rearview mirror.

I raised a finger, and he grinned. He wasn't as tough or as smart as Tim, but he was still a good guy. At least he had loyalty, and he had tried to look out for me with Tim gone.

Tim twisted to glance at me, quick shame in his eyes, and I felt myself flinch. What the fuck else did he expect me to do? I had never had anyone but him, and everything was gone when he was. I took what I was offered and was grateful for it. Nobody ever lined up to offer homes to a fifteen year old hood, especially with the name of Shepard.

"I'll sort us out a place tomorrow" Tim said, his eyes on me, and I sat back a little further in my seat, knowing that once again he had judged me and found me lacking.

Tim's POV:

I leaned over the bar and refilled my beer straight from the tap myself, sick of waiting for Buck. He was being kept busy, if he wasn't such a tight bastard he would have hired a couple of good looking girls to work the bar. Hell it was the least he could have done for my welcome home party.

I turned back around and looked over the room, packed wall to wall and hazy with smoke from cigarettes and joints, the floor was slippery with split beer and blood, smashed glass crunched under my boots.

Every hood and greaser I'd ever known had come it seemed, and the excitement and tension in the room was growing by the minute. There was something underlying it all, something I couldn't figure out, and if guys would stop coming up to talk to me every five seconds, I might have a chance to work it out.

"Hey Tim, how are you?"

Darryl Curtis elbowed aside a couple of greasers to come and stand beside me.

He wasn't someone I would expect to see, but then it seemed everyone had come tonight, I had even seen the youngest Curtis, Ponyboy. All come to prove their allegiance, to remind me they were on my side maybe. There was sure as hell something going on.

"Good, how are you?" I shouted back. The atmosphere didn't exactly allow for polite conversation.

He leaned into me and yelled near my ear; I heard "shit pay" and "record", and something about houses.

I put my hand up to indicate him to shut up, and nodded my head toward the door, picking up my drink. I didn't have to shove my way through like everyone else, the crowd parted before me. By the time I got to the door half my drink had spilt from the amount of guys grabbing my hand to shake it and slapping me on the back, and for the first time in a year I felt alive again.

I went out to the steps outside the door, and Darry came and stood beside me.

"Pity about the rain" he commented.

"Yeah" I agreed half heartedly, looking out over the parking lot, slick and dark under the heavy summer rain. The fat drops hammered on the overhang above us, and thunder clouds were stacked high and iron grey in the night sky. I kind of liked it, but that wasn't the sort of thought I could say out loud.

"You were saying…" I prompted when he stayed quiet, swigging back the last of my beer and pulling out a cigarette.

"You got a job lined up?" he asked.

"Nah," I gripped the handrail and leaned back on it slightly, watching the veins and muscles rise on my lower arms. There ain't much to do but pump weights in the cooler. "Gonna try and sort it on Monday, gotta get a place to stay too."

"Guess you got parole conditions" Darry said.

"Yeah, get a job, a fixed address, 7.00pm 'till 7.00am curfew, and no associating with known felons." I nodded over my shoulder toward the party inside at the last condition, and he gave me a wry grin.

"There's some jobs going at my work," he said. "They need a few laborers, the pays shit but the boss probably won't care that you got a record. I'll put in a good word if you're interested."

I glanced at him suspiciously, wondering what he wanted. He sure wasn't someone I'd expect to help me out.

"That'd be good" I replied, because getting a job sure wasn't going to be easy with a prison sentence behind me.

"I'll talk to him on Monday, let you know" Darry said.

I waited, but he didn't say anything else. I tossed my cigarette butt down, wondering if he was really gonna do me a favor for nothing. Nothing is free in this world, that's one thing I'd learnt.

"Hey Curly you fucking punk!" someone suddenly yelled from the parking lot.

I looked up and saw someone getting out of a parked car, followed by a couple of friends, and my brother entering the parking lot from the other side with three friends. I wondered what he'd been doing out there, last time I'd seen him was inside playing pool.

Curly looked up at the shout, his clothes clinging wetly to him.

I looked back over at the kid who had called out to him, trying to place him, he sure looked familiar.

"Dean Bassett" Darry said, "From over Brumly."

"That's right, him and Curly were friends last I heard."

One of Dean's friends suddenly grabbed his shoulder and spoke to him, Dean turned to look up at me and I saw him hesitate. I shrugged slightly, letting him know I wasn't about to run down and save Curly's skin.

I'd never gone around saving Curly from himself, he was expected to fight his own battles, same as I had to. Letting him have nothing but my name to stand on wouldn't be doing him any favors, no one ever got respect like that.

"I hear you been looking for me" Curly called out, walking toward him across the rain soaked parking lot, the hood of his sweatshirt pulled low over his face.

They reached the centre of the lot and stood outlined against the night, shadows thrown by the neon light that blinked above the bar.

"Hey" I spoke, leaning forward on the handrail, and both boys looked to me. "No blades, got it."

It was Dean who nodded first, then reached into his pocket, pulled something out and tossed it aside, a flash of silver gleaming in the dark.

Curly looked at me a second longer before doing the same, and as he turned back Dean threw the first punch. Curly was caught off guard, I saw him stagger and nearly slip on the slick surface, then regain his balance and throw back a quick punch of his own, catching Dean under his eye.

"Damn kids" Darry said beside me. "Fighting over bullshit."

I looked at him quickly, wondering if he knew what they were fighting about. But he didn't say anything else, just turned and went back inside.

I lit another smoke and heard the door open again, lighter footsteps as someone else came to stand beside me.

"Hi Tim, good to be out?"

I saw who it was and smiled slightly. Beth, the girlfriend of the Vipers vice president. I remembered the night I had taken her up against the bathroom sink at their pad, while her boyfriend drank in the next room.

I guess she was remembering it too, from the slow way she smiled at me.

"How's it going Beth?"

"Good, it's good to see you again" she said, her hand touching my arm.

I looked back to the fight again, Curly had gotten the upper hand, he had Dean in a headlock and was driving his fist into his face, over and over.

"Your brother right?" Beth said, looking over at Curly.

"Yeah."

"You teach him how to fight?"

"I taught him everything he knows" I said, keeping my eyes on Curly as he released Dean and stood waiting in the rain, looking focused and confident.

"He's good, almost as good as you" she teased.

"Yeah, and then he wakes up."

She laughed and touched my arm again, leaning her body into me.

"Your boyfriend here?" I asked her.

"Oh yeah."

"Now who's the fucking punk!" Curly yelled. I looked over again, Dean was down on the ground and Curly stood over him, his fists clenched by his side. "You better remember this!"

"He can fight pretty good" I conceded to Beth, pride deep inside as I looked at him through the heavy sheets of rain. I knew it had been hard for him the last year, even though he never admitted it.

The other two Brumly boys took their injured friend and got back into their car, and Curly's friends came up the stairs and passed me to go inside, two of them gave me a grin, the third stared down at the ground.

Curly came up last, wiping blood from his mouth with the hem of his sweatshirt, his eyes on me, a kind of searching in them.

"Hey" I grabbed his arm. "What were you doing out there?"

"Fighting" he replied, looking both wary and confused.

"I mean what were you doing outside in the first place? What were you and your buddies doing?"

"Just went for a walk" he said evenly, not looking at me. He ducked his head and wiped his face on his sweatshirt again.

"Hey" I grabbed his chin roughly and forced him to look at me. "Don't treat me like I'm fucking stupid or you'll be the one laid out. What were you doing, smoking dope?"

"Nah" he pulled away from me and shook his head. "Joey had some booze stashed at his house, we just went to get that."

I held his eyes, considering the fact that even if he had been, he'd be too scared to tell me. I didn't actually care too much about dope, but I'd always wanted to keep him away from any drugs whatsoever, just to be on the safe side.

I still remembered the belt around my fathers arm, his veins rising high beneath it, the track marks that wound their way ever further down. _"Hold this Timmy…pull it tighter" _and I did because he was my father, and I loved him even more than I hated him.

I stared at my brothers shadowed face as he stood under the light, and the ribbon of years and memories stretched between us, things that had bonded us together tighter than blood, tighter than the womb. He shook his head slightly, mouthed _"never" _as he looked me in the eye.

"Alright then" I said, indicating he could go with a nod, suddenly remembering Beth beside us, the party inside, the carload still in the lot.

I waited for Curly to leave and lit another cigarette, offered one to Beth.

She took it and smiled at me, said softly, "You didn't tell him he fought good."

I leaned my back against the handrail and watched her run her hand through her hair, puffed slowly on my cigarette.

"You need to go to the bathroom, Beth?"

She tossed her head, swung her hips, curved her lips in a smile. "Sure, and you?"

I jammed the bathroom door shut, pulled off my tee-shirt and tossed it onto the floor. She stood against the sink, her skin pale under the fluorescent light, raised her hands to her waist. I could see myself in the mirror behind her, eyes hard and eager, moving towards her…

It was like nothing had ever changed.

* * *

A/N: Okay I'm gonna leave them right there, I'm sure you can use your imagination for the rest. Just remember, it will be very unromantic!

Thanks for reading, sorry for the wait, and hope you enjoyed! (can you tell I'm kinda in a rush here? lol)

Thanks so much everyone who reviewed, it was really cool that people seemed to enjoy that chapter as I didn't know how well it would go down.

A few (quick) replies:

NittanyLizard: I'm glad you liked that line, as I spent a bit of time wondering if it was in character for Ponyboy to go to the party or not, and after giving it some thought realized it could actually be in character for him to act out of character (okay that sounds weird but it made sense in my head!)

Arreya: Thanks I'm glad you enjoyed the chapter. I have a few things planned for the story, and hopefully they are not to cliché or overused! Hope you are still liking it, and if it seems cliché or whatever at any point you are welcome to point out the mistakes (actually it would be appreciated)

Starbryte234: Thanks, your review was so nice. Yep, I thought it would be fun to mix it up with some different POV's this time, although the majority will be in Tim's. He just gets kinds of tiring sometimes as he is so jaded!

Hahukum Konn: Nice, I like it when people pick up on the foreshadowing. I'm glad you liked Ponyboy's POV as I had always wanted to try writing him, but also thought he would be the easiest to get out of character. I actually had heaps of fun with him though, it was nice to write someone a bit more sensitive than Tim!

goldengreaser: This chapter probably makes it a bit clearer why Tim is so overprotective on the drug issue, hope you enjoyed.

Holger Dansk: If fanfiction ever has a reward for fastest review in history, I'm nominating you! Thanks, it's appreciated.


	3. Sickness

Disclaimer: S E Hinton owns The Outsiders.

Tim's POV

"Damnit, come on, someone dying in there?"

I glanced over at Beth and grinned, as the hammering started up on the door again.

"We should fucking kick it down" another voice said from outside.

I pulled my tee-shirt back over my head and did up my jeans, listening to the growing frustration of the people outside the door. There were only two bathrooms at Buck's, and the other was the ladies toilet.

"Didn't think I took that long" I commented to Beth, "shoot it's been twelve months."

She looked up from doing up her blouse and gave me a small smile, not replying. I leaned back against the wall and looked up at the small, high window above me, hearing the roll of thunder from outside. The night was hot and clammy, even in the linoleum floored bathroom, with its tiled walls and open window.

"You wanna have a quick line" Beth asked, pulling a small bag from her purse.

"Nah" I shook my head, pressed my sweating back against the cool wall.

"Alright, this is what we gonna do, get a chair…" I heard from the other side of the door.

"Fuck getting a chair, I got my boots."

I tilted my head back again and looked up at the grille covering the window. Only the night before I had lain in my cell and looked at the barred window and dreamed of being free. Now I was, and the life I had come back to seemed as much of a cage as the prison had been.

I watched Beth wipe down a section of the sink with a wad of toilet paper and empty her bag onto it, and thought of Johnny dying in a hospital room, Dallas shot down as the police cars circled him, Curly fighting Dean in the neon lit parking lot, and I wondered if there had ever been any other choice for any of us.

"Come on" I said to Beth. "Let's go before the door gets busted down."

She stood up, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. "Shit, what about all the guys out there, they'll see us walking out together…"

I shrugged and waited for her to get her things together, why girls could never just be ready to go was one thing I'd never figured out.

"Chris better not find out about this."

"If you cared so much about what he thought, you wouldn't be here with me" I told her.

"You don't know what he's like Tim" she said from behind me as I opened the door.

The guys standing around the door fell back, and a second later cheers and yells erupted as they took in the scene, the laughs and slaps on the back followed me as I pushed past them and went back toward the bar.

I made my way over to the cigarette machine in the corner, feeling in my pockets for any spare change. Of course I had none; I had walked out of the prison with nothing but what I was wearing.

I spotted the Curtis boy's buddy, Steve, standing beside the machine.

"Got a coupla bucks to spare Steve?"

"Sure Tim. They didn't pay ya for being in the cooler huh?"

"Nah, only thing you get in there is new clothes and a bit of soap."

I fed the coins into the slot and punched the button for a packet of Lucky Strikes.

"Your brother sure can put 'em away can't he?" Steve said, still standing beside me, looking at me with just a hint of a smirk. Anymore and I'd have had enough reason to pound his face in.

"What's he putting away?" I asked calmly. He's always struck me as the sort of guy that likes seeing others in trouble.

"Ain't ya seen him?" Steve asked, "I think he's drinking even Two-Bit under the table."

"Yeah?" I glanced back over my shoulder briefly, saw Curly seated at a table with a few other guys in a corner, and turned back again, deliberately unconcerned.

"Couldn't keep up huh Steve?"

He hitched his shoulders and smiled tightly. "I gotta work tomorrow, all them drinks cost money."

I could understand that, but this being my welcome home party, I'd had more drinks bought for me than I knew what to do with.

"I'll owe ya Steve" I said, pocketing the smokes, even though both of us knew I'd never pay him back. It would just be remembered that he had done me a favor, that was how things worked.

I casually let myself wander past the table Curly was seated at, Two-Bit and a couple of other guys were there with him, and a deck of cards was spread over the table with a full jug in the middle. Curly had his hands cupped around a glass of what looked like straight whiskey, and was leaning forward arguing with Two-Bit.

I paused behind him and listened to his slurred words.

"…that ain't the last King."

"Yeah, here, I'll show you" Two-Bit said, looking in even more of a drunken state than Curly. "One, that's two, three" he slapped at the upturned Kings as he spoke. "So you gotta drink, okay? I'll get a bucket." He gave my brother a wide smile.

"Aww fuck, it is too" Curly said, shaking his head. "Damn there's so many…couldn't count the fuckers."

"It's a blood problem, that's why" Two-Bit told him sagely. "Sometimes the blood in your alcohol stream gets too high, that's when you can't think good no more."

The other boys all laughed, and Curly grabbed the jug from the middle of the table and downed it without stopping.

Two-Bit's gaze lifted to me as I stood behind my brother, and I saw him stiffen and look uncertainly from me to Curly. No wonder no one knew how I'd react to seeing Curly this drunk, I didn't know how I felt about it myself. I knew I should be proud, but there was still a part of me that hated to see him like that.

Curly tilted his head back further to get the dregs, and his eyes met mine. He suddenly made a choking sound and doubled over, coughing hard, and Two-Bit dropped his head into his hands, no doubt to hide his laugher.

"Tim" Curly said between coughs. "What you doing?"

"Watching you act like a fucking dickhead."

"Uhhh" he made a small moaning sound, suddenly going pale.

"Aww, should have got that bucket Two-Bit" one of the other boys yelped, then gave me a glance and wiped the amused look off his face even faster than I could have smacked it off.

Curly leant back to look up at me again, an imploring look in his eyes, and I turned to leave, then swore under my breath and turned back again.

"Come on then, you little shit" I hissed, grabbing the back of his tee-shirt in a fist and dragging him out of his chair. I half dragged, half carried him to the door, my other hand through the belt loop of his jeans.

I dumped him over the hand rail outside, and watched without sympathy as he heaved his guts out onto the gravel below.

"Aww Darry come on, Soda's still here" I heard from behind, and turned to see Ponyboy coming out the door with Darry behind him.

"I don't care, you ain't staying here without me, these guys…" Darry saw me and shut up abruptly. "Hey Tim, is he alright?"

He gave Curly a look that wavered between pity and distaste, standing there with Ponyboy clean and sober beside him, and I felt a sudden and fierce protectiveness for my brother welling up inside me.

"He's alright" I said to Darry, forcing the words out around the hard sorrow that filled my throat, because I could suddenly see the life that Curly would live, always one step behind me, judged by my name, not himself. It would always be that way for him, it always had been.

"Hit the booze a bit too hard huh?" Darry asked rhetorically, smiling at me a little, a kind smile.

"_these guys"_ he had started to say, and I could finish his sentence in my head _"are not like us."_

Born in the same town, born on the same side, I wondered where the difference lay. Was it just in what we wanted, or was it what we had done to get what we wanted?

"We're heading off before it starts raining again" Darry said to me. "It's good to see you again, and I'll let you know about that job."

"Yeah, cool."

I shook his hand, gave Ponyboy a nod and got a shy smile in return.

I watched them head back across the parking lot, Darry's hand on his younger brothers shoulder. If there had ever been a time when I wanted to be anything other than the toughest hood in town, I couldn't remember it.

Curly pushed himself up on the railing and rested his arms across it, spat hard and wiped his hand across his mouth.

"Thanks Tim" he said quietly.

I leaned against the railing beside him and glanced down at him, hating the mixed up way he made me feel inside.

"Shit I should have let you puke in your lap. Don't you know when to stop?"

Curly sighed and dropped his head to press his cheek against the metal railing.

"Yeah I know. Sometimes I just wanna get fucked up." He stood up and crossed his arms over his chest, shivering a little.

"Don't you ever just wanna not feel anything anymore?" he asked me.

Then he shook his head slightly and looked at me, a defeat in his eyes that made me want to both hug him and smack him round the head. "Nah, I guess you don't. You can handle anything."

He swayed drunkenly and I grabbed his arm and pulled him back against the railing beside me, all the things I couldn't say running through my mind.

I guess telling someone how you feel takes a different kind of courage from being the toughest hood in town.

That seems to be the hardest thing of all.

"Come on, get your ass inside before you freeze to death" I said, putting my hand on his shoulder and pushing him ahead of me.

Curly's POV

I sunk back a little deeper into the sofa and tried to steady my hand, raised the lighter and focused my eyes on its shimmering blue flame, tried to line it up with the cigarette in my mouth.

"Shit" someone across the room was hollering. I slid my eyes over to the noise, saw Two-Bit standing at the bar with one arm pointed off at an angle. "The suns comin' up, does that mean we gotta stop drinking?" he yelled out to whoever in the room was still sober enough to be awake and able to understand. Yelling to no one, in other words.

I went back to trying to light my cigarette, which was taking enough concentration without having to worry about the sun. But I wanted to go outside and sit down, smoke a joint and watch the sun come up, I just didn't think I would be able to stand, that's all.

I wished Tim wasn't such an asshole about drugs, then me and him could go and do it together. Me and Wade used to do that after parties sometimes while I lived with him, but not until I had sworn 'til I was blue in the face that I would never tell Tim about it. Showed how well he knew Tim, no doubt I'd get as much of a hiding as Wade would.

But I could understand why he was like that, I just didn't like to think about it, and I guess that's just one of the ways I ain't like my brother.

Two-Bit stumbled across the room to the window where I could see the sky was lightening into a clear, deep blue. It was gonna be a nice day, after that storm.

"I got a plan" he called out to me, seeing me watching. "I'm gonna fix it, don't you worry kid."

I wondered where Tim was, I hadn't seen him in a while. Probably off with some girl, or off doing some crime, or off knitting for all I fucking know. He doesn't tell me anything.

Two-Bit grabbed a table and upended it, sending all the glasses and bottles and ashtrays covering it sliding to the floor in a shattering din. He dragged it over to the window and leant it up against it on its side, blocking the view of the light.

"There, now we don't know it's time to stop drinking" he announced, looking pleased with himself.

"Put it back" I said, even though I knew he couldn't hear me, mumbling around the cigarette still in my mouth.

We ain't got much to look at that's nice around here. Nothing wrong with letting the light come in, and if I hadn't been too fucking stoned and drunk to stand up, I would have done something about it.


	4. Morning Light

Disclaimer: S E Hinton owns The Outsiders

* * *

Tim's POV

I opened my eyes to a blinding shaft of sunlight falling across my face, winced and rolled over, rubbed a fist over my eyes and opened them again. I was sprawled across a bed in a sparsely furnished room I instantly recognized as one of the upstairs bedrooms at Buck's, and the thin curtains did nothing to keep out the bright sun.

I pulled myself up on one elbow, feeling the old, familiar throb of a hangover, one like I hadn't had in a year. The one thing I sure hadn't missed.

I wondered what time it was, tried to remember what had happened in the early morning hours as the party wound down. I had gone for a drive with Wade and Kane, the president of the Vipers gang. I recalled having a drunken conversation with Kane; he had talked about the Brumly boy's, talked about me and him needing to join forces.

"I'll jump you into my outfit right now if you want" I had told him, I remembered saying that, and him just looking at me with a strange smile.

Sober and with my head pounding, I sat on the edge of the bed and wondered about what he had meant. What gang leader would give up his position? I sure as hell wouldn't. Not unless someone killed me.

I got up and pulled on my tee-shirt and boots, wondering where I was gonna find a bed for me and Curly tonight. I hated nothing more than having to rely on someone else for a bed and a hot shower.

I headed downstairs and out to the bar to see who was still there, if anyone. The smell of alcohol turned my stomach, and the room was dim despite the bright day, someone had shoved a table against one of the windows for some God known reason, although it was always pretty dark anyway, seems to be all bars are.

Curly was asleep on the only couch in the room, on his side with his knees and arms tucked in. It looked like a position he had gotten down with long practice, and I felt the shame run through me again. My brother sleeping on some hoods fucking couch for a year. Even prisoners get a bed.  
He must have been born under a bad sign that kid, born into a life where I was all he had.

"_don't you ever just wanna not feel anything anymore"_ he had asked me the night before.

I wished I had told him the truth, which was some nights in my cell I had to slam my fist against the brick wall just to feel something.

I went round behind the bar and out to the little kitchen area, boiled the jug and rinsed a couple of mugs out under the hot tap. I made the coffee strong, there was no milk but I dumped plenty of sugar in each.

I sat down beside Curly and thumped his shoulder.

"Hey, sit up and get this into you."

He cringed away from me and pulled one arm up to cover his head.

"C'mon, I got shit to do today, I'm going soon."

"Okay, but don't talk so loud" he muttered, shoving himself up and dropping his head into his hands. "Fuck I hate hangovers."

I held a coffee out for him and waited for him to take it, and then put my own cup down to get my cigarettes out.

"Here, wake your lungs up." I shoved a smoke between his lips and lit one up for myself. He'd be back down asleep in a second if I let him, and I didn't want to have to go without him. It'd been a year since I'd seen my brother other than in a prison visiting room, and I'd missed him more than I'd thought I was even able to miss anything.

"I feel like shit" Curly said, taking a drag of his cigarette and exhaling it with a hacking cough.

"You know why, ain't got no one to blame but yourself."

"Yeah I know, it's 'cause I stopped drinking. If I was still drunk then I wouldn't be hung-over."

He flashed me a wan smile, shafts of sun coming through the top of the barred window falling across his face. I couldn't remember ever being as young as he was.

"Where'd you go last night?" he asked casually.

"Out for a drive, had a couple of drags, Kane's Hemi Charger sure whipped those soc's in their Mustangs."

Curly looked at me with interest. "Did Kane say anything much to you?"

"About what?" I asked sharply.

He stared into his coffee for a minute, and I took my gaze away from him to look over the room, making sure no one was about and listening. There's something about a bar in the morning light, the way the sun catches the shards of dust that hang in the air and gleams in pools of spilt beer, the silence that falls when the music is turned off, that makes everything seem slow and motionless, like trying to move through a dream.

"About what, Curly?"

For a year the world had rolled on, and a year is a long time on the streets, where deals are done and reputations made every day.

"Kane come and saw me and Wade a while ago, he wanted us and his boys to join together, make an alliance."

"What'd y'all say?"

"I said no, Wade said yes." Curly smiled ruefully, gave me a look half embarrassed and half accusing. "You did make him your second in command, after all. So everyone listened to him."

"What?" I put my empty cup down and grinned at Curly. "You telling me my outfit are supposed to be allied with them fuckers now?"

He nodded, looking hesitant. "I was gonna tell you when you was inside, but you was gonna get out soon anyway so I figured you could sort it out then."

He looked at me, and I saw that searching in his eyes again. "You ain't mad, Tim?"

For a second, I could suddenly understand. "You done okay" I told him, touching my hand to the back of his head. "Wade just ain't got enough fucking balls to be leader."

"What you gonna do?"

I shrugged and pulled out another cigarette, wanting to chase the hangover away.

"Today I just gotta sort out a place to live and a job, before I meet with the parole officer on Monday. And then, I'm gonna remind everyone who the fuck's in charge."

Ponyboy's POV

"Pony come on, you nearly ready?"

I stared into the bathroom mirror, seeing just the blurry shape of my face behind the condensation. I raised one finger and traced an outline around it on the mirror, rubbed out two circles for eyes.

"Ponyboy!"

"Coming" I called over my shoulder, hearing the tightly wound patience in Darry's voice. I didn't want to go, and he wouldn't make me, but it didn't seem right not to.

I wiped my hand across the ghostly face in the mirror and opened the bathroom door, just about tripped over Darry.

"Shit, there you are" he said, grabbing my shoulder as I stumbled.

"Soda home yet?"

Darry shook his head. "Nah, and I don't think he's gonna be. We'll just go, okay?"

"Yeah, I guess."

It was two years since mom and dad had been killed, and last week Darry had suggested we drive out to the cemetery. Soda had just hunched his shoulders slightly and carried on eating, acting as if he'd never heard it said. I knew for him our parents were in the memories he carried, not in photos and not in the ground.

I felt the same way, but I could see Darry thought it was something he should do, and I said I would go too. It would be easier for me to go there than for Soda, I don't know why I knew that, but I just did.

I followed him outside to the truck and jumped in, feeling the heat settle around as suffocating and airless as being inside an oven, flinching as the vinyl seats burnt right through my jeans. I wound my window right down and hung my head out. Darry touched the starting wheel and swore, yanking his hand away.

"Wish we had some decent air con in here" he said, starting up the engine.

"Shoot, I wish we had it in the house too. Okay if I have a smoke?"

"Yeah, but I don't know how the heck you can smoke in this heat. Try and blow it out the window okay."

I lit up and leaned further toward the window, grateful for the slight breeze that came from the movement of the truck.

"Turn up the air con, put your foot down harder" I joked to Darry, and he looked over and grinned.

"Can't afford no speeding tickets, Soda's got enough for the both of us."

I watched the rows of houses slide past us, the cars up on blocks behind chain link fences, dusty yards that would be nothing but mud come the rain, and then the spot burnt in my memory, where Dally had fallen under the streetlight, body full of bullets.

I hadn't thought about him for a while, but at Tim Shepard's party last night, I had suddenly looked around me and realized that he should have been there, and Johnny too. Probably Johnny and me would have been standing against a wall, watching as Dally raised hell.

"I thought there would be more trouble last night" I commented to Darry.

"There'll be time for that."

"Poor Curly huh, he looked pretty sick."

"Poor Curly nothing" Darry said shortly. "I didn't see anyone pouring it down his throat."

I nodded agreement, but I had seen the way Darry had looked at Curly when he spoke to Tim. Tim had stood straight, nothing showing on his face, but I had thought somewhere inside him was a kind of rage, cold and deep. I had wondered what it would be like to be his brother, and I had felt sorry for Curly.

We were heading toward the highway out of town to the cemetery, and I looked out at the houses we were passing. Just glimpses was all I could see, glimpses behind stone walls and tall trees, I saw the glint of water in pools, the green of tennis courts.

I wondered if Cherry Valance lived in one of these houses, and if she would wave if she saw me. Most of the time she acted like me and her had never sat beside each other at the movies and talked, never stood together in the wasteground the night of the rumble. But sometimes at school she would pass me in the hallway and give me a smile, sad and fleeting.

I lit another cigarette, sat back in my seat and waited as the miles rolled beneath us.

* * *

A/N: I don't know if in the states it's called cemetery, or graveyard, or either, sorry if it's wrong. I don't know why I made them go there anyway, that chapter just came out weird. Anyway hope it was okay and you enjoyed, any comments welcome. 

Replies to reviewers:

Hahukum Konn: Thanks for the review, I was wondering if would be easier or harder for Tim to get a job back then than now, so that's good to hear.

ninaelis: Thanks for your review, I liked your comments about Curly, it's good to know you get where I'm coming from with him.

Ilifay: I always liked Tim in the book too, and since he wasn't in there much it's fun to write him. I'm writing them based on what is known of them from The Outsiders, which didn't include Angela.

Ale Curtis-Carter: I'm glad you liked that chapter seeing as it was your idea that helped me with it, thanks again!

SpiderGirl05: Glad you enjoyed, hope you liked the rest too!

bessie1: Thanks a lot for your review, it's so great (and useful) to get detailed reviews! I was trying to bring the Curtis boys into the story more, and figured that in a way, Tim and Darry do have certain similarities. Enough anyway that I didn't think it would be unrealistic for them to be friends, despite there differences.

starbryte234: They weren't laughing at Curly, they were laughing at the joke Two-Bit made. Well it was meant to be funny, I know I suck at writing jokes! Yep, in the book there are a few references made to Two-Bit drinking. Glad you enjoyed, thanks!

NittanyLizard: It was interesting trying to write Tim's reaction to Curly getting drunk, I figured he wouldn't want to give away too much by being angry / concerned. Anyway glad you liked it, thanks.

anon: When I write, the relationships I like writing most are the ones that are kind of messed up. I dunno why, I just find it interesting. I liked your comments on Tim, pretty accurate! Thanks for the review.

kate: Thanks so much for the nice review. I guess I see a kind of emotional numbness (and weakness, yep) when I'm writing Tim's character. I don't mind writing him as a flawed person (if he was perfect he'd annoy me so much I'd have to kill him off! lol) but on the other hand if he seems so cold as to be unlikable or unbelievable, then the story isn't going to work. I mean that's not what I'm trying to do. So I was relieved to hear you still like him! Thanks again.

Snowgurl54: Thanks glad you enjoyed the chapter. I'm sure Tim will find out eventually!

DragonFly; CrazyAlchemist017; Tenis Chicka; Here's the update, hope you like it!


	5. Home again

Disclaimer: S E Hinton owns The Outsiders.

* * *

Curly's POV

I stood in the doorway, leaning against the wooden frame and slitting my eyes against the sun. My head throbbed dully and I had to swallow every five seconds to try and keep from being sick. I wished I had sunglasses, and I wished I could smoke the joint I had in my cigarette pack. A joint is an even better hangover cure than a whisky. Behind me, inside the house, I could hear Tim talking to Buck's friend.

"I'll get the money, you saying my word ain't good enough for you?"

Tim sounded calm and almost curious, and I figured Buck's buddy had no idea how close to dangerous ground he was stepping.

"I can't just take your word, I need that bond before you move in."

He did sound nervous now, maybe he did have a few clues. Buck had given Tim the name of a friend who had a house to rent. Seemed Buck had friends who could get anything and do anything under the sun. Even Tim wasn't connected like that, even he didn't know guys who owned properties.

And now this guy was wanting rent in advance and bond, for this fucking shit hole on the East side. But Tim didn't have a whole lot of choice, he had to show up to the parole meeting with proof of address, he had told me.

"This ain't even in our turf" I had said to Tim as we drove over in Buck's Ute. "Why the fuck do we wanna live out here?"

Tim had looked at me with a kind of amused smirk. "Who says it ain't my turf?"

He had a look in his eyes that was strange, almost excited. Like how he had looked when I told him about what Wade had done, I'd expected him to be angry at least. Not that hard eagerness, like he was taking on a dare.

"I wanna help you out Tim, really I do. How about you just give me half the amount now and the balance next week? I could do that."

I looked out to the street again, the rows of shitty little box houses. What the fuck would Tim want out here anyway? I just wanted everything to be the same, but Tim always wanted something more.

"I can give you half by the end of the day" Tim said.

"Okay, that'll be just fine, thanks." Buck's friend sounded hugely relieved to have been able to work that one out.

I envied how Tim could do that, go after someone who had something he wanted, and before long they'd be bending over backwards to give it to him, like he was the one doing them a favor.

I wondered how much money he had to come up with now, and what he had in mind to get it. Sunday ain't the best day to commit crimes on, most everything is closed and people are home. Whatever it was, I hoped he'd let me come. My guts started churning again, and my mouth filled with saliva. I swallowed hard and tried to fight down the feeling of sickness, and fear. What was there to be scared of anyway?

I jumped off the porch and made it to the side of the yard to heave onto the bare, dusty ground. My head spun as I stood back up, and for a minute the world was nothing but pulsing flashes of black and blinding light.

"Curly you okay?"

I nodded and stepped back into my brother, let him hold my arm and steady me. I loved him more than anything in this world, but sometimes I wished he could be someone he never was, be someone I could hold onto and know would never leave.

"I'm just christening our new house" I said.

He let go of me and sighed, looked out over the quiet street.

"In the mood for a drive?" he asked me.

"Yeah, where to?"

"I need to get some quick cash. Kane's buddy's got a chop shop over the other side of town. And I know just the car to take there."

The look on his face was one I knew well, bright eyes and cold smile, a kind of bleak happiness. I felt like I had when he got out of prison, surging excitement riding over the dull fear deep inside.

Tim's POV

"You follow me in the Ute" I told Curly, getting out of the drivers seat. "Just take it easy okay."

"Why do you get to drive the tuff car?" he asked, looking over at the Boss Mustang parked on the street.

Of all the replies to that, the only one I could say out loud was "Because you can't handle a four-forty" and I slammed the door on his annoyed expression.

I leaned casually up against the driver's door, keeping watch on the house as I popped out the window. Once inside it only took me a minute to get the engine going, of all people it was Dally who showed me the fastest way to steal a car.

I hauled away from the curb and checked over my shoulder to see that Curly was following, eased up on the gas until we were cruising just over the speed limit. A car going too slow looks just as suspicious as a car going too fast generally.

The shop was in a warehouse down an alley, surrounded by deserted looking buildings. Curly pulled up behind me and got out the car, I shot him a quick glare and he scowled and got back in.

As I had suspected, Kane's buddy was only too happy to take the Mustang off my hands, in exchange for a roll of hundred dollar bills.

Curly got out again as I came back over to the Ute.

"You wanna drive? I can hardly stay in a straight line."

I nodded and got in the drivers seat, waited as Curly wandered around to the other side. The temperature seemed to have been steadily climbing all day, and even in the shadowed alley it was so hot I felt like I could hardly breathe.

"You should have kept that car, we could have got another one to flog off" Curly said as I backed the Ute out to the street.

I laughed. "Wouldn't want to be driving that round, didn't you recognize it?"

"Nah, who's is it?"

"Shane Buchanan's, or was."

"Aww shit," Curly looked at me, smiling almost as if he didn't quite believe it. "We just took the Brumly boys president's car to the chop shop?"

"I took it, remember that. And yeah, sure did."

"You trying to start a war?" he asked, still smiling, but with a slight edge to his voice.

"Nothing less than what he'd do to me if he could."

I glanced over at Curly, saw him chewing on his lip and frowning slightly. I couldn't understand him sometimes, or maybe it was just he couldn't understand me. I didn't care if I started a war, I wanted it. I wanted to have something to fight for, something to win. What else is there otherwise?

"You think Buchanan ain't been taking everything he can from me while I'm inside?" I asked him. "You gonna tell me he ain't, can you say that?"

I pulled out onto the road, looking at the heat waves rising from its surface and shimmering ahead of me. I waited for Curly to speak, knowing he wouldn't be able to stand the silence stretching on in the close, stifling confine of the car.

"He's selling smack, that's what he's doing" he said, the words coming quickly. "He's got his boys selling it right in our turf."

I felt the anger swell under my ribs, felt it running hot inside. That was one thing I had never allowed, and everyone knew it. Everyone.

"So what's Wade doing about it?" I asked sharply, knowing that was the wrong question. I had always known he couldn't run things like I could, and some nights in my cell I had wondered if I would have anything left to come back to.

Curly twisted in his seat and edged closer to the door, I could see he hadn't wanted to be the one to give me the news.

"Wade's taking a cut; he gets ten percent of every bag sold."

"He's letting 'em do it?"

"Yeah, and it ain't a bad idea Tim. I mean he gets money for doing nothing, all he does is send someone to collect every week…" Curly stumbled to silence, keeping his eyes on me, defiance in the lift of his chin.

I slowed for a traffic light, trying to keep my temper in check. It was nothing I couldn't sort out, and it was nothing that didn't happen everywhere else. I had seen enough of the stuff inside, and I knew how much money it was worth to people who weren't dumb enough to bang the shit they sold.

But sometimes money ain't the most important thing.

I looked at Curly. "I ever hear you've touched that stuff; I'll show you a different kind of smack. One that'll break every goddamn bone in your body."

"I know" he said, resting his arm along the window and gazing out at a couple of girls walking by, unconcerned.

I slammed my foot down on the accelerator, wishing I could outrun the helpless frustration I suddenly felt inside. At that moment, it seemed like my brother was the one thing I wouldn't be able to control.

"Everyone still have drags on a Sunday night?" I asked him.

"Yeah, not everything's changed" he said, giving me a grin. "You wanna race?"

"Yeah." That was what I wanted, to go so fast that nothing could touch me.

"Reckon we can get a car to beat Kane's Charger?" he asked, looking over at me with a daring smirk.

I grinned back at him, feeling the anger lift, replaced with anticipation. There was a whole night ahead of us, fast cars, drinking under the night sky and the smell of gasoline, tires burning rubber, girls with short skirts and willing smiles,there was a car to steal, and a race to be won.

I sat foward a little in my seat, casting my eye over the streets as I drove, looking at the lines of cars parked along the road, wondering what would be mine for the night. This was what life could be, this was how it should be. Your not just low born trash one step out the gutter, you could have anything you wanted, and you could beat the world.

* * *

A/N: Hey just in case anyone's interested, the title of this story comes from the Metallica song of the same name. I had this line of the chorus in mind; _"what I've felt, what I've known, never shined through in what I've shown, never be, never see, never see what might have been" _I felt like it applied to Tim especially, but to a lot of the other characters too. 

Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed the chapter.

Replies to reviewers:

Hahukum Konn: Thanks glad you enjoyed the chapter.

nineelis: Thanks, I'm glad you liked those parts, they were fun to write!

starbryte234: Thanks for that, actually it's the same here in NZ so that's good.

ashelly: Thanks I'm glad you liked it, hope you liked the rest too!

Ale Curtis-Carter: A few people have said they want Tim to find out – do you have a death wish against Curly? lol. Thanks for the review!

Aslan: Thanks so much that was such a nice review to get. I'm so glad you are enjoying the story and like how I'm writing it. Thanks again!

Locket the Lookout: Thanks, I'm glad you liked that line.

nycgal5490: I'm glad you enjoyed it, thank for the review and hope you like this chapter too.

Ilefay: Good your enjoying the story and hope you like rest too!

Glitch: Thanks good to hear your liking Curly, even though I find Tim the most fun to write, I find Curly a bit easier to relate too!

Arreya: Thanks for the nice review, it's really cool to hear that you like the description because that's one of the things I'm trying to work on.

Flipwise: That's cool,glad your still reading! I'm trying to keep all the other characters involved, so hope it works out!


	6. Cars and Girls

Disclaimer: S E Hinton owns The Outsiders

Ponyboy's POV

The sun lowering in the sky sent streaks of pastel color across the horizon, and Elvis sang on the radio as I clattered the dishes in the sink, halfheartedly swiping the brush across the plates.

It was too hot to be elbow deep in warm water, too hot to be doing anything really. Behind me I could hear the rustle of paper as Darry sat at the kitchen table going through the bills, from the way he slapped them down on the table I knew there were too many.

"Hey Ponyboy," Soda wandered into the kitchen, picked up the dishcloth and grabbed a plate from the rack. "You wanna come out for a ride tonight, go down and see a few drags?"

He put the plate in the cupboard and tossed the towel back down on the bench, pulled out a chair beside Darry and sat down.

"Too hot for housework" he announced, leaning back in his chair lazily.

"If it ain't too hot then it's too cold, right little buddy?" Darry commented, but he sounded slightly amused. Seemed that nothing Soda did could get on his nerves. I wished I could be so lucky.

"What'd you say Pony, wanna come?" Soda prompted.

I turned and looked at Darry, questioned him with a shrug. I would be just as happy to stay home, there was something about drag races that turn me cold. The speeding cars, the scream of brakes, the carnage that waited on the other side of the knife edge. I couldn't stand to watch, and I couldn't stand to look away.

"You got school tomorrow" Darry said, then glanced and Soda. "And you got work."

"Yeah, we won't be late" Soda said easily. "Let him come."

Darry looked at me in silence, and I remembered how that afternoon we had stood over our parent's grave together.

"You finish cleaning up and you can go" he said. "But I want you home by eleven, okay?"

"Yeah, okay" I said.

Soda banged his fist down on the table. "Ponyboy Curtis, your application for bail has been approved" he stated officially.

I watched Darry turn back around and bend over the table again, his tee-shirt sticking to his back in the humidity.

"Why don't you come with us?" I asked him suddenly.

He looked back round at me, surprise on his expression. "Nah, Pony, I got an early start tomorrow" he said, and gave me a smile, making me sad and glad inside.

The road surface was still hot from the setting sun as Soda and I walked toward the drag strip with Steve beside us. Steve had driven us out to the chosen place, an industrial area on the outskirts of town. The locations changed regularly as everyone tried to stay one step ahead of the fuzz. I could see cars lining the road and people standing around, but not much could be heard over the rumble of engines.

I walked past the haphazardly parked cars, past the groups of people standing round talking and drinking, smoking cigarettes and dope. A car stereo throbbed with base, and the low sun cast a golden light over the scene.

"Ponyboy" someone called behind me, and I turned, squinting into the sun. Curly was sitting up on the hood of a car, a bottle of spirits in one hand and his other arm draped possessively around the shoulders of a girl sitting beside him, a cigarette unlit in his mouth.

"You got a light Curtis?" he asked.

I pulled my lighter out and he took his arm away from the girl to grab it, sparked his cigarette and tossed the lighter underhand back to me.

"You feel okay today?" I asked him, leaning up against the car on his other side.

"Yeah, nothing another drink won't fix" he said, lifting the half empty bottle. "You want some?"

I took it and had a swig, clenching my teeth and swallowing quickly.

"Who's this, Curly?" the girl beside him asked leaning forward to look at me.

"Ponyboy" was all he said, and I wondered if he even knew her name.

"Hi Ponyboy, cute name" she said, smiling in the only way girls like her seem to know to smile, flirting and teasing, but with a coldness beneath the surface.

"How about you?" Curly asked. "You drink much last night?"

I shook my head, knowing he wouldn't understand if I told him I hated getting drunk.

"That's right, big brother was there, huh?" Curly said, grinning at me tauntingly, but no real malice in his voice.

I shrugged and smiled a little, figuring it would be easier to let him think that was all it was.

"Yeah," Curly continued. "Least Tim don't care if I get drunk, he's cool like that."

He smiled, his eyes very blue, like the dark bruise that a punch leaves. I thought of Tim standing with me and Darry the night before, and wondered if he cared more than Curly knew.

"You gonna be racing tonight?" I asked Curly, hoping the answer would be no given the half empty bottle in his hand.

"Yeah, gonna kick some ass" he said, slapping the bonnet of the car, and the girl laughed and ran her hand up his thigh. I felt myself flush and looked away, thinking about going and finding Soda. She was just the sort of girl Curly would like, just the sort of girl most any hood or greaser would like. Skirt too short, blouse too tight, smiling and flirting, moving her body like she was in a dance.

She leaned into Curly and whispered something in his ear that made him grin savagely, and I wondered why I couldn't just be happy with the hand that had been dealt me. But I looked at Cherry Valance in the hallways at school, looked at her friends, and felt so much wanting inside that it almost scared me. Not wanting for sex, or even a girlfriend, just wanting a life that was something more than what a greaser was supposed to want.

"Aww shit" Curly said in a low voice, like he was talking to himself. He sat forward, looking ready to run, ready for action.

"What?" I asked him, looking round, wondering if the fuzz had turned up.

He nodded toward a tall, solid guy walking across the street toward the crowd on the other side.

"Shane Buchanan" Curly said, like that was supposed to mean something.

I recognized the name, and looked at the guy again, finally putting a face to the leader of the Brumly Boys. I didn't know there was trouble between them and Tim's boys, but Curly was watching him with intense interest as he made his way over to where Tim was standing.

"Me and Tim stole his car today" he told me, even though I hadn't asked. "Well, Tim stole his car, I guess" he amended suddenly, and then frowned slightly, his face unreadable as he looked over to his brother.

Tim had stepped forward from the group of hoods and greaser girls that surrounded him and he stood in a casual pose, even from here I could see his cool eagerness. He scared me in a way that Curly didn't. It was like he didn't just enjoy the violence, he lived for it.

Curly sighed and lit up another cigarette, still watching Tim, but not looking concerned.

"Tim'll whip him" he said, sitting back and taking another drink, like he was settling in to watch a movie.

Stillness had been cast over the street, while the car engines still throbbed; everyone had stopped drinking, talking, flirting, all eyes on Tim and Shane Buchanan.

It was like watching one of those silent movies; I couldn't hear anything they said as they moved together, their figures dark against the setting sun.


	7. Memories

Disclaimer: S E Hinton owns The Outsiders

* * *

Tim's POV

I turned slightly as Shane approached, stood so that the sun was behind me and he had to squint to look at my face.

I was aware of the tense, excited silence that had fallen over the crowd behind me, I could feel their eyes on me as I stood before them and waited for Shane to come, and I thought of all that there was to fight for.

For turf and for pride, for my reputation, for the kids in my streets he sold his shit to.

Shane came to a stop in front of me and nodded a greeting, keeping his hands in his pockets.

"Tim, how you doing?"

"Not bad" I replied, taking a drag of my cigarette.

"Who screwed up and let you out?" he asked, and smiled slightly to humor his words.

"The fuzz was running out of work without me around" I said, flicking my butt away to land at his feet. "What are you doing over here, come down for a drag?"

"I'll tell you a funny thing," he said, hitching his thumbs in his pockets and eyeing me coldly. "My car seems to have gotten itself lost, you seen it around anywhere?"

"You mean the metallic blue Boss Mustang with the blue and white interior? Nah, ain't seen it."

His jaw tightened and he took his eyes away to gaze over at the buildings behind me, looking like he was struggling to keep his temper.

"What about that brother of yours? I hear he's got a fondness for what ain't his."

I felt myself stiffen at the mention of Curly. I could see him across the road, sitting on the hood of the Pontiac GTO we'd stolen for tonight's race, watching me with cool indifference.

"He ain't taken nothing from you Shane" I said evenly. "You leave him out of this."

"And what is 'this' anyway?"

"This is me telling you I'm in charge now, and if you don't get the fuck off my turf, your car is the least of all that I'll take from you."

Shane pulled himself straight and looked at me hard. "You don't wanna piece?" he asked me, quietly, almost curious. "You know how much fucking money we making out there?"

The suns last heat was hot on my back, but it seemed that nothing could ever warm me all the way inside. I remembered my mother on the last night of her life, the last night of my childhood at ten years old. I remembered my father and his eyes already long dead and his last words _"I'm sorry boy…" _

I shook my head slightly. "I'm telling you now and I ain't gonna tell you again, I want you out."

Shane kept his eyes on me, silent, and the thought he might have guessed at the memories that haunted me filled me with anger, and hot shame.

If the name Shepard hadn't been notorious before my parent's death, it sure as hell was after. I knew it even then, knew it in the faces of the teachers at school when they looked at me, when the principal hauled me in to his office for shit other kids had done, when Curly asked me why his friends weren't allowed to play with him anymore.

"You really think all them are gonna follow you still," Shane asked, nodding his head at the guys behind me. "You think loyalty counts for that much, when everyone else is making money?"

I didn't let him see he was getting me mad, because no one would be allowed that much. "I bet none of your boys ain't seen a damn cent. You're the one making money."

"Damnit Shepard, just think about it" Shane suddenly hissed. "If you and me get in on this, we'll cut the Vipers out, and we'll own this whole town. Shit we'll own the whole damn state. Just think about it."

We would alright. And I thought of my mother again, fifteen and pregnant when she married my father, working 12 hour shifts for minimum wage and taking her pay packet home to a husband who shot it straight into his arm. A world of misery is what we'd own.

I stepped closer to him and held his stare, so close we were almost touching.

"Get your boys the hell of my streets, you understand?"

He hitched his shoulders in a slight shrug. "Well, Tim, seeing as my boys are on 'em, maybe they ain't your streets no more…"

My fist was hitting his mouth before he'd even had time to close it, although I was too close to him to really hurt him. I stepped back quickly and swung again, thinking all those days lifting weights inside hadn't been for nothing. But I was mad enough that I probably could have whipped him with my right arm behind my back.

He staggered back and I came for him again before he had time to get his balance, punched him to the ground and stood over him, pushed my boot down onto his chest and held him there.

I paused for a minute to give everyone time to take in the scene, and I spoke loud enough for them all to hear.

"If I see you or any of your boys selling in my turf, you won't be getting up again" and then I stood back and let him stand, to make my point clear.

I could see him debating whether to have another go at me, and I stood my ground, waiting.

He fingered his jaw and cursed, his eyes baleful. I remembered back at school, me and Shane eating lunch together, cutting class and smoking behind the gym. Everything had all got messed up somewhere along the way.

He gave me a smile suddenly, almost friendly, and I wondered if he was remembering those days too.

"The futures coming Tim," he said. "You can't fight it."

I looked across the darkening street, to my brother sitting still on the car, watched Shane walking away. I'd fought everything else, it was all I'd ever done.

I turned back to the crowd behind me, and Shane's words came back to me _"you really think all them are gonna follow you still?"_

"Hey, good going Tim!" someone called out, and I saw Two-Bit raise a beer can to salute me. A few others followed suit, and as I watched them I saw nothing but respect.

"Hey, Kane" I said, looking over at him as he stood with a couple of his boys. "I seem to be on a winning streak, how about a race?"

An excited chorus of agreement followed the suggestion, and Kane smiled slowly, touching his hand to the hood of his car.

"This is one sucker you ain't gonna beat" he said.

"Watch it, he might have Buchanan's Mustang here" Two-Bit cracked, raising a few laughs.

I headed over to the car, hearing the roar behind me as Kane turned on his engine and revved it up, hearing everyone moving around, getting into position around the drag strip.

Curly was sitting with Ponyboy and a girl I didn't recognize, and as Two-Bit had done, he raised his drink as I came over.

I stood before him in silence for a minute, and he lowered his arm, looked at me uncertainly.

"You ready to race this beast?"

"Hell yeah!" he grinned, jumped down from the hood and stumbled drunkenly on landing.

"Can I come in the car?" his girl asked, looking not at Curly but at me.

I shook my head. "It's a drag race we're having, not a Sunday drive."

She looked at Curly, and he shrugged. "I'll only be a minute, Pony'll keep you company"

I bit back a grin at the look on Ponyboy's face, like Curly had just suggested he keep company with a snake. He was a smart kid, I guess.

"Who's the girl?" I asked Curly, starting up the car and heading over to the starting line.

"Jessie, dunno her last name. She's a friend of that girl you like to fuck in bathrooms."

He laughed, looking pleased with himself for that bit of information.

"If she's a friend of Beth's, ain't she a little old for you" I said coolly.

His smirk got even prouder, if that was possible. "Yep, she's eighteen. And if she asks, so am I."

I shook my head, watched the girl standing on the road before us, waiting for her to indicate the start of the race.

"She blind?"

"Yeah, blind drunk!"

I couldn't help but laugh a little, and pushed the accelerator down as the girls hands fell to her side.

Kane surged ahead straight away, and I dropped my foot further and felt the power surge as the supercharger kicked in, heard its high whine over the rumble of the engine.

"Damn this thing can fly" Curly yelled to me, and his excitement caught me, lifted my mood as I aimed for the straight road ahead, chasing Kane's tail lights, chasing the horizon.

We caught him up and raced side by side, and then I was past him and the end of the drag strip was there, and the people standing round lifted fists in the air, and I was past them too, and all I wanted to do was keep going, keep on going toward where the sun set and the sky was gold and red and nothing could ever catch up to me, no cars and no fuzz and no memories.

"You planning on stopping" Curly asked, and there was so much trust and faith in his voice it was like a fist closing around my heart. He wouldn't question it if I did keep going, he would go wherever I went, follow where I led him.

My mother would get into uniform for work and come into my room, bend down to hug me, even though I always pulled away, and she would say _"look after your brother"._

"Yeah" I said and hauled on the handbrake, turning the car as I did, feeling the tires skid across the gravel until we were facing back where we had come from. Back where we would always go.

* * *

I hope you enjoyed the chapter. I tried to give a bit more insight into Tim's anti-drug stance. 

Replies to reviewers:

Ale-Curtis Carter: Thanks I'm glad you enjoyed it. Don't worry, I don't think Curly is smart enough to hide everything from Tim, it'll happen!

ninaelis: Thanks for the review, I'm glad you enjoy having Pony's pov, I also like giving an outside look at Tim and Curly.

NittanyLizard: I'm so glad you liked the chapter, thanks! I'm glad you liked the Pony / Darry scene too, I was trying to show Pony with the understanding of his brother he has at the end of the book.

Reviewer: Sorry it was short, hope you enjoy this chapter!

nighttime writer: I guess it would be pretty funny if Curly did come to Tim's rescue! But I think Tim can handle himself, hope you enjoyed the chapter.

Hahukum Konn: I hope I did an okay job on the race in this chapter, as you can no doubt tell, I don't know the first thing about cars! lol.

bessie1: Thanks for the review, you really seem to get what I'm trying to show with the characters, it's really cool that you do!

Flipwise: Thanks, I hope you like this chapter too. I'm trying to keep all the other guys involved too, I'm glad you like seeing them in the story.

gymnastics-lover: Thanks for the nice review, I'm glad your enjoying the story! Tim's really a fun character to write, I like showing the contrast between his feelings and his actions. I hope you enjoy this chapter too.

starbryte234: Thanks I'm glad you found that line touching, I didn't really mean it to be, but it's cool that it was! And hey, your good at writing reviews, I love your reviews because you tell me what parts you liked, and point out mistakes, andthats whats most useful to me.

nycgal5490: Thanks I'm glad you're enjoying it, I'm glad it seems real too!

Anon: Thanks for the nice review, and thanks for the pointer about the car! I'm glad you like seeing things from Pony's perspective too.

kate: I get the impression that, like me, you find Darry the most sympathetic character in the book! Anyway I'm really glad you got so much out of that scene, I mean there is so much I want to include in this fic, but I don't want it to turn into 'The Never-ending Story' so I try and pack a few ideas into each scene. I'm trying to write Pony as a bit more mature, I'm glad it's coming off okay. Thanks for the review!

Snowgurl54: I know it was shorter than usual, sorry! I hope you enjoy this chapter.

Aslan: Thanks for the nice review, I'm glad you liked that line, I kind of like it too. I'm really glad your enjoying Pony's pov, the response to it has been somewhat mixed, and made me a bit doubtful about it. Hmm, how does that saying go "you can't please all the people all the time" lol! Thanks for letting me know about the bonnet/hood thing too!

Jesse: Pony's pov isn't that bad is it? Well, hopefully you'll like this chapter better!


	8. Hard truths

Disclaimer: S E Hinton owns The Outsiders

* * *

Curly's POV

I leaned back in my seat and looked over the room idly, feeling slow and tired in the heat. I was at The Dingo, just hanging out, waiting for some action.

But everyone looked to be too hot for action, like me most everyone was just sitting around smoking and watching the two girls playing pool, watching as they bent low over the table to take their shots.

Tim was off going to his parole meeting and trying to get a job, and I waited for him to get back. Things always seemed better when he was around. More alive, more tense, like anything could happen, and whatever it was would be something exciting. Even if he wasn't my brother, I think I'd follow him still.

I got up and grabbed my bottle of coke, wandered outside and sat on a crate by the door, lit another cigarette. I leaned my head back against the wall of the building and scanned the parking lot, feeling a listless disinterest.

I watched the groups of guys standing around by their cars, and it struck me that the last time I'd seen Dally alive was in that parking lot, slashing my brothers tires.

I'd gone and stood up beside the car, drinking a beer and watching as he carried on his work. When he finished he'd stood and looked at me, said in an indifferent tone, _"I s'pose you'll be telling Tim?"_

Usually I'd have stepped in before letting him get that far, and he did a look a little surprised that I hadn't. I guess he wasn't to know I'd been pissed at Tim, I'd come home drunk at nine that morning, and he'd smacked me so hard my head was still spinning even then.

I remembered it then, sitting there sweating even in the shade, looking out at the slouching youths in the dusty lot. I remembered how mad Tim had been at me for staying out all night, I remembered how mad I'd been for him hitting me, but most of all I remembered something I'd seen under his anger, an emotion I'd never seen in him before. Somehow, I'd managed to scare the toughest hood in town.

I looked up at the sound of crunching gravel, and saw my brother coming across the parking lot. He stopped to talk to the other boys, and I watched them straighten under his gaze, almost like they was soldiers under his command, like those boys that was off fighting in Vietnam. That was how it was when Tim paid you attention, like the sun had fallen down on you, standing in that light you felt like the world was bright and better.

But then when he left, that was when you felt the cold ache inside, that hollow place that nothing could fill; no girl, no crime, no drug.

He came over to me, stood looking down at me and smiling slightly.

"What you doing?"

"Nothing, you get that job?"

"Yeah, starting tomorrow. What's happening inside?"

"Nothing much, everyone's just hanging out."

He looked away, back across the lot, looking bored and restless. He'd changed somehow while he was inside, but I couldn't figure out what it was.

"Let's go for a drive, go get boozed up" I suggested, suddenly wanting something to ease that restlessness I could see in him, that I felt inside myself. Sometimes it seemed that our lives would be nothing but this, waiting for action.

"Yeah, alright, we'll go buy a bottle."

We borrowed Wade's car and left, drove the hot, empty streets. Tim hauled over outside the bottle shop, and once it had stopped the heat inside the car settled around thick and heavy. I shoved open the door and got out, leaned up against the hood while I waited for Tim to buy the booze.

"Hey, Shepard" I heard from behind me, and Shane Buchanan came up and stepped in front of me, blocking the sun from my eyes.

I looked at the livid bruises on his face, and felt smug pride on behalf of my brother.

"You ain't lookin' so good" I told him. "You walk into a wall?"

He smiled tightly. "You're a real funny one Curly. Who was it that told Tim about that anyway?"

I shrugged, ignoring the slight taunt in his tone. "You ain't exactly been keeping it a secret."

He folded his arms across his chest and regarded me closely, his eyes slitted. I could see grudging respect, ever since I'd taken to him with a tire iron, he'd looked at me different. All my friends thought I had it made, being Tim Shepard's brother, they didn't understand that it only meant I had to work twice as hard to be respected. The other gang leaders thought I was just a kid living off Tim's rep'. And I guess I was really, until he went inside.

"So, what are you gonna do?" Shane asked.

I felt suddenly cold all the way through, felt the shame of betrayal. _If Tim ever found out…_

I pulled myself straighter and let the coldness inside show itself through to the outside, staring at Shane, trying to intimidate this nineteen year old gang president.

"Tim's my brother; I'm with him, always. He don't want nothing to do with it, and I don't neither."

Shane nodded, touched his hand to his jaw and nursed his bruises. "I guess you don't now. I guess you don't need the money no more, now that your brothers back, he's gonna pay all the bills and take care of you, ain't he?"

I felt my fists clenching in anger at all he was implying, and felt the shame again too, because he was right. Because Tim had handed me a life on a plate, he had given me a reputation and a name that was feared, he had given me a home and something to belong to and someone to believe in, and I had taken it all as if it was nothing more than what I was due.

It wasn't until he was gone I had realized all that I had was what he had given me, and that it only was there if he was.

"I told you I would only be doing it while Tim was inside, and you know what he told you last night. So unless you wanna take your beats again, you best get the fuck off our turf."

Shane raised his eyebrows slightly and seemed about to say something, but suddenly stopped and looked past me, his face going blank again.

"What'd ya want Shane?" my brother asked sharply, coming around the car and leaning up beside me.

"Aw, just stopped to say hi to Curly here" Shane replied smoothly, giving me a quick glance. He was a fucking snake, I never should have listened to a word he said. I should have ignored him when he waved that money in my face. I should have punched his fucking lights out, like Tim had.

Tim just smirked a little and asked, "You find that car of yours?"

He hadn't read anything into Shane's words, didn't seem to think it was anything unusual. I realized that it would never occur to him, not for a minute, that I would disobey him.

Shane made reply with an angry glare, and I remembered his words to Tim _"the future's coming.  
_He was right it was coming, coming like a whirlwind that would swallow us all.

Tim's POV

The party started at The Dingo, out in the parking lot, carried on until the fuzz turned up to shut us down. I'd been drinking out in the sun for a couple of hours, and it seemed a good idea to announce that the party could carry on at my house.

The idea went down well, and I stood in the kitchen now and surveyed the scene, feeling bored and looking for a fight or a fuck.

This was one of those times I missed Dally, he was always up for a rumble. There was hardly anyone that would take me on in a fair fight, unless it was someone looking to forge a rep for himself. It didn't matter that I wiped the floor with them, they seemed to gain a certain pride just from fighting me.

"Hey, Tim, how you doing baby?"

An arm snaked around my waist, and I glanced down to see Sylvia hanging off me drunkenly.

"Alright, you having a good time?" I asked her, all the booze I'd sunk making me feel generous towards her.

"Yeah I'm having a really good time" she said, her voice slow and languid. "You wanna have a good time too?"

I shook my head a little, had a swig of my beer and waited for her to leave.

"Come on, Tim," she slid her hands down to rest on my hips and stood close to my chest, looking up at me. "You been inside a long time, didn't you ever get lonely?"

She was a pretty girl, with her blond curls and lithe body, her serene smile, and despite my best intentions I could feel myself swelling against her as she ground against my crutch.

She put her face up and leaned toward my ear.

"I got something for you" she whispered against my neck. "You wanna go in the bedroom; I'll give you something good."

I let the alcohol take over, let myself forget that she used to be Dally's girl. Dally was dead, nothing we did mattered to him anymore.

I turned and walked out, walked down the hallway to my bedroom, hearing her follow me close behind. I shut the door and leaned against it, watched her go and sit down on the bed. There was nothing else in the room, just a bed and my clothes tossed over a chair in the corner. Comforts like furniture didn't mean shit to me, not after a life of boy's homes and reform schools.

"What ya got?" I asked her, smiling a little, to make it kinder. I'm not such an asshole as they all might think, I never fucked a girl I didn't care for in some small way.

"Come here" she said softly, patting the bed beside her invitingly.

I pushed myself of the door and went and sat down, ran my gaze over her slowly, expectantly.

"Give me your arm" she said.

"What?" I asked, her words suddenly cutting through the haze of booze and lust.

She hesitated, looking suddenly nervous. "You don't wanna?" she asked. "I mean, we could smoke it I guess."

I grabbed her wrist hard, and she flinched.

"What the fuck are you talking about?" I demanded, but I knew well what she meant, and for a minute it took all my self control not to punch her.

She tried to pull away from my grip, looking scared. "I'm sorry Tim" she said, her voice shaky. "I didn't know, I thought you were okay with it, don't be mad."

"You thought I was okay with it?" I spat out, repeating her words, feeling rage building up inside. It was one thing for Shane to deal smack to nameless, faceless junkies I couldn't care less for, it was another for him to come onto my turf, sell it to kids I knew, kids I grew up with.

Sylvia sniffed tearfully beside me, still trying to twist out of my hand around her wrist, her eyes on me wide and afraid. I cursed and let her go, watched her back away warily a few steps then make for the door.

I sat still on the bed, listening to the dull, muffled music thudding through the wall. I felt a brief and vicious regret that I hadn't even got what I came in here for, and then turned my thoughts to Buchanan again. He'd gotten bold while I'd been gone, it seemed that everyone had. Even my own brother seemed to have slipped beyond my constraint, not a child in my shadow anymore, but someone who looked at me with defiance in his eyes, silently demanding something from me that wasn't love or benevolence, but respect.

I lit up a cigarette, tried to settle the jagged edge of anger inside before I went back out to the party. I would make Shane regret that he ever dared to cross me. I would take back everything that was mine, and then some.

* * *

I hope you liked the chapter, let me know what ya think! 

How am I doing with Curly's pov? He's so hard to write the way I picture him.

Replies to reviewers:

Ale Curtis-Carter: Thanks I'm glad you liked it. I don't know when it will happen yet!

CrazyAlchemistgrl: Thanks I'm glad you enjoyed it.

Hahukum Konn: Yep, I'm thinking of the events in those books, as from what I gather the fighting etc was near its not long after The Outsiders is set. Thanks for the review!

gymnastics-lover: Thanks for the review, I'm glad you liked that chapter too! I'm glad you like the flashbacks too, I like having little looks at Tim and Curly's past.

Glitch: Thanks, I'm glad you like how I'm writing Tim, that's always cool to hear!

ninaelis: I'm glad your enjoying it, thanks for the review!

nighttime writer: I'm glad you think so, I'm trying to give Tim a few admirable qualities! Thanks.

bessie1: Thanks for your review, its great to hear what parts people like. In The Outsiders Ponyboy makes a reference to the fact that Tim is a young hood who'll grow up to be an old hood, so I'm trying to keep him to his character from the book in that way, but still give him thoughts and feelings too. I'm glad it seems to be working so far.

NittanyLizard: I'm so glad you liked that chapter, thanks! Its cool you noticed the bit with Pony's reaction to the girl, I found it amusing to put in and I'm glad someone else liked it too!

Flipwise: I'm glad you liked that, I think it was showing the best part of Tim's nature when he told Shane to get the drugs of his turf. Thanks for the review, I'm glad you're still enjoying the story!

Crimson Haze: Thanks for your review. I'm so glad you enjoyed the story, it's so cool to hear that. It's great that you think everyone is in character and that you like having the different pov's too. Thanks again!


	9. Busted

Disclaimer: S E Hinton owns The Outsiders.

* * *

Tim's POV

I surveyed the remains of the previous night's party as I stood in the kitchen, looking over the breakfast bar to the lounge. A couple of people were asleep on the couches, and through the open front door I could see a few die hard revelers still drinking out on the porch. I rested my arms on the bench and rubbed my temples, feeling the heavy throb of a hangover. I had managed to grab a few hours sleep, but I sure as hell wasn't looking forward to a day of working on a construction site.

I opened the fridge and hunted for a beer, figuring that there must still be something left if everyone hadn't gone home yet. I grabbed a bottle and popped off the top, flicked it onto the floor to join the rest of the mess.

I went through to the lounge and hunted round in the boxes piled in the corner for a clean towel. Neither me nor Curly had bothered unpacking yet, and probably never would. We tended to just haul things out of boxes as we needed them. Inconvenient as it was, somehow it still seemed less hassle than unpacking.

Sitting on the edge of the bath I drank the beer while I waited for the shower to heat up, reflecting on the party. It had been quieter than any I'd seen for some time, the hyped up tension of fights waiting to break out had been missing. Even Curly hadn't been in his usual form, as far as I could tell he'd spent most of the night in his bedroom with a few of his buddies. Every time I'd turned around someone from the Vipers had been there trying to shake my hand, calling me brother. I felt like I could hardly recognize the life I'd come back to.

The shower eased my headache, and afterward I made a coffee and took it out on the porch, leant against the door frame and looked out at the cloudless sky.

Two-Bit, Wade, and a couple of other boys from my outfit were sprawled around, still drinking, looking beyond the point of being able to get any drunker.

I nodded in reply to their greetings, reflecting bleakly on the fact that I was going to be working out under that white hot sun all day. Helping build houses for soc's, doing it just to keep my own four walls around me and Curly. Seemed nothing more than paying for my own fucking prison sometimes.

"Hey Tim, what you doing with that?" Two Bit asked, nodding his head at the mug in my hand. "We still got some beers in there."

"I gotta work" I told him. "You should try it some time."

"Aw nah, that would get in the way of drinking" he said, grinning lazily.

Wade laughed and nodded agreement, sparking up a joint that looked big enough to signal ships with.

I took another swig of my coffee, feeling somewhat bitter. I wondered why I seemed to be the only one with parole officers, probation, bills to pay, and a brother to try and keep alive.

I went inside and tossed the rest of the coffee down the sink, lit a cigarette and headed off.

I spent two hours hauling bundles of roofing around until the first break was called at 9.30am. Most of the guys headed off to get something to eat, but I couldn't be bothered. I stood in the shade of the partially constructed house and lit up a cigarette, wishing already for a cold shower, to wash the off the layer of sweat and dust.

Darry came over with a couple of bottles of coke and handed me one.

"Here, thought you might want a drink."

"Thanks" I said, taking the bottle, grateful for it's coolness in my hand. Darry smiled ruefully at me.

"This jobs a real bitch in the summer."

"You ain't kidding."

"Guess it's good to be out though."

"Yeah, sure" I said, wondering why I wasn't happier about it. I thought about older guys I'd seen come out of prison after lags of five years or more, with something missing inside them. Like some part of them had been claimed by the prison, so that they belonged to it still, and would ever more.

"Seems like it's been a long time" I said.

Darry shrugged and scuffed his boot along the ground, dragging a trail in the dust.

"A lot's sure changed" he said shortly.

"No shit it's changed" I said, hearing the same note in my own voice, knowing we were both thinking of the same thing.

Darry nodded. "Yeah, a lot less fighting and a lot more drugs. A few of the boys have been caught by the draft too."

"I hear even the soc's have settled down."

"Yeah, sure have. Heck, we got some of 'em running round in our neighborhood buying smack."

I thought about that, the rich kids who had been handed everything coming into our turf to destroy themselves. There was a certain irony that I liked there.

"I just hope Pony's smart enough to stay away from it all" Darry said.

I leaned my head back against the house, feeling tired just thinking about the long hours stretching ahead of us.

"Shoot, you ain't gotta worry about him. And Curly's smart enough to be scared of me, he knows I'll bust his ass if goes near that shit."

Darry raised his eyebrows and stayed silent, and I lit up another cigarette. I wasn't much in the mood for conversation anyway. I watched a couple of girls walk by, listened to the chorus of whistles from the guys on the site. One of them strutted slightly even as she pretended not to notice the attention, tossing her dark red hair back from her face. She walked with a different kind of confidence from any I'd ever had, and for all that, a kind of innocence too.

"Look, Tim," Darry said, not looking at me but gazing over the building site. "I guess if one of my brothers was doing something I really didn't want him to be doing, I'd hope that someone would tell me about it."

I took a drag on my cigarette and resisted the urge to demand he tell me what the hell he was talking about; I knew he was one person that wouldn't be intimidated, not even by me.

"I know you don't want Curly getting involved in certain things," he continued, still not looking at me.

"Fuck, what?" I prompted impatiently, my temper wearing thin fast. I guess he was going to tell me Curly had been cutting school, or some other such thing that I couldn't give a shit about. The list of things Darry really wouldn't want his brothers doing was no doubt endless.

He sighed and tossed his empty bottle away. "I guess someone's gotta tell you, before the kid gets in over his head, if he ain't already. I heard he's been doing business with Shane Buchanan."

"What's that mean?" I asked sharply, and felt the headache I'd had that morning throbbing again. I looked out toward the street again, looking for the red haired girl, but she was gone.

"I don't know exactly what he's doing, I couldn't tell you that," Darry said carefully. "But I know Shane's the main supply for smack, and Curly's been helping him out."

"Hey!" I shoved myself off from the wall and stood close over Darry, my lungs feeling tight from all the sudden anger filling me. "Don't you talk shit about my brother. I know you don't think much of him, but he wouldn't do nothing like that…"

I stopped abruptly, suddenly filled with doubt. I remembered sitting in the prison visiting room with Curly not so long ago, him smoking and gazing somewhere over my shoulder, not meeting my eyes. I remembered telling him I better not hear he'd been smoking dope, and his angry reply _"you can't tell me what to do anymore, you ain't even there."_

But I couldn't believe he would lie to me like that, that he would defy me like that.

"You sure you got your facts straight?" I asked Darry, keeping my voice low and even. He didn't need to know how I really felt, no one needed to know that much. I stepped back from him and away from the shade, felt the heat of the sun.

"It was Sylvia that told me, I'm just telling you what I heard. I suggest you talk to him and see what he's got to say for himself."

I just nodded briefly, trying hard to keep my cool. If what Darry said was true, I was gonna rip the little bastard apart. That he would work with Shane, that he would help him to do the one thing I had always forbidden.

"We gotta get back to work" Darry said, glancing down at his watch. "I ain't trying to cause shit for you and Curly, Tim. I'm just doing as much as I would hope you'd do for me."

The day ahead didn't seem so long suddenly, it didn't seem near long enough. Not for me to cool down enough to avoid killing Curly when I got a hold of him.

I chucked my cigarette on the ground and scuffed it out, headed back over behind Darry. Under all the anger inside I could feel something else too, swelling tight in my chest. I never thought my brother would be the person to betray me.

Curly's POV

The curtain folded itself into the wall, and the cowboys printed on it turned their horses, made like they were to ride off the curtain and down the wall. I blinked a couple of times and looked again, slit my eyes a little to try a different view.

"Goddamn Curly" someone said beside me. "Those cowboys on your curtain are doing some crazy shit."

I turned my head, not too fast, and saw Dean Bassett from Brumly sitting beside me. For a second I was confused, and then I remembered he'd been in here for hours, or maybe it was days, it was hard to tell anymore.

I thought about asking him, but then I remembered I had a rep' to keep up, a name to uphold, and I should know what fucking day it was.

"Who's got a cigarette?" I asked, aiming the question at any one of the six people in my room. Beth leaned forward from her seat beside her boyfriend on the floor to offer me one, and as I reached to grab it I thought of what her and my brother were rumored to get up to in bathrooms. She was a real pretty girl, and her boyfriend was one of the toughest hoods around, and it seemed there was nothing that Tim couldn't do.

I lit the smoke and stretched my legs out, feeling all the muscles and bones and what ever the heck else was there moving as I did so. I wondered how much longer it would be before the trip wore off, it was starting to get tiring, and I really wanted to just go to sleep.

"Curly" Dean said, and I glanced over at him, noting the black eye I'd given him just a few nights ago, in the parking lot outside Bucks.

"You know all this shit that's going down with your brother and Shane, I just want you to know I ain't got no part in it." He took a long gulp of his beer, glanced around the room. "I mean, who gives a fuck right, we're all greasers ain't we."

I laughed. "We're all damn hoods ya mean" I said, because he was right we were, and yet I knew that the gang was supposed to mean more than anything to me, like it did for Tim.

"That's right you know" Beth said, pulling her knees up to her chest and looking at Dean. "We shouldn't be fighting all the time, we should just hang out, be friends, like we are now."

She looked at me and smiled gently, her eyes too bright and wide. She was wired to hell, we all were.

"We should tell 'em" Dean said. "What's the point? Just say it to 'em."

I blew a smoke ring idly, watched it hang in the air. I knew Tim and Shane would never see it that way. I couldn't either, to think that would be to betray my brother.

But then I thought about all that I had done already, and it seemed that nothing would ever be enough to take the shame away. I wished that Tim had never gone away; I wish I had stayed like the child I once was that would sooner slit my own throat than disobey him.

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A/N: Hope its okay. Sorry for the slow update, I was uninspired.  
Thanks everyone who reviewed, I love hearing what you think of the story! Its 2am and I want to get this posted tonight, so I'm cutting the replies short. (no one reads them anyway right?) 

A couple of replies to reviewers:

Bessie: Thanks, I enjoyed reading your comments on Tim! I also like the part in the book you mentioned, for the same reasons. Also I think it shows he has a level of concern for his brothers actions. I try and write the gang leaders as reasonably smart guys, I think to inspire people to follow them they would have to have a certain amount of charisma and intelligence.

kate: Thanks for your comments, I'm glad Curly is coming across the way I want it to. It's hard to get a mix between showing how much he idolizes Tim but still giving him a mind of his own. I'm really glad your enjoying the story, thanks.

Crimson Haze: Thanks for the review, I'm glad you liked the part where Curly remembers Tim hitting him. I didn't actually think about the fact that it was like what happened with Darry and Pony until after I'd written it. But I decided to leave it in, because I liked the contrast between Curly and Pony's reactions to being smacked. And like you say, it shows that Tim does really care about his brother, even if he tries not to show it!

Ninaelis: Thanks for your nice comments. No, your not reading too much into it, and this chapter will probably make it a bit clearer (I hope!).


	10. Reckless

Disclaimer: S E Hinton owns The Outsiders.

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Tim's POV

I kicked aside a pile of bottles as I crossed the porch to the front door, Darry's words on my mind again, as they had been half the day. I didn't want to believe he was right, but I knew him enough to know that he wouldn't tell me something like that unless he was pretty damn sure he was right.

The lounge was empty of people and scattered with beer bottles and over filled ashtrays, and I skirted past the mess and headed down the hallway, looking for Curly. I swung open the door to his room and glanced in; saw his bed unmade and empty.

Maybe he'd gotten wise, maybe he'd taken off somewhere. I stopped outside the bathroom door.

"Curly, you in there?"

"Yeah" he called back, "just a sec…"

I kicked the door open before he'd finished speaking, stood in the doorframe and stared at his back.

He was standing in front of the mirror combing back his damp hair, the room still full of steam from the shower. He looked tired and hung over, but he smiled when he saw me.

"Hey Tim," he said, his voice bright. He was happy to see me, he always was, and I wondered what the hell had happened while I was gone. It had never seemed so long as it did now.

I pulled the door shut behind myself and leaned against it, folded my arms across my chest.

"Turn around, Curly."

He put the comb down and turned to face me, raised his eyes to mine.

"What is it?" he asked, leaning against the edge of the sink, his lips slightly turned in a smirk.

"Why don't you tell me, kid."

I watched him chew on his lower lip as he stared at me in silence, his cockiness gone abruptly.

"What do you mean?" he asked, looking down and fiddling with the buttons on his shirt.

I felt my fists clenching as I watched his downcast head, a swirling mix of fury and aching protectiveness inside me. I thought of all the nights he had clung to me after our parents died, my shirt balled in his fists as he hung on like I was all that could save him.

"Don't you stand there and lie to me now" I said, stepping forward closer to him. "You got one chance to tell me what the fuck you've been doing with Buchanan, and you better talk fast."

His shoulders lifted slightly, but there was no surprise in his reaction. It seemed almost like he had been waiting for this moment to come. He raised his head again, met my eyes without defiance, as if he were moving toward something bleak and inevitable.

"Okay," he said quietly, half to himself. "Okay then."

He smiled slightly, looking resigned to whatever would come.

I shoved my hands in my pockets and stared up at the frosted glass window, trying to swallow all the anger and guilt until I thought I would choke on it.

"So tell me" I said, not looking at him still.

"I needed the money Tim," he said, his tone flat. "I didn't have shit when you were gone, nothing. All I had to do was pick up the stuff every week and drop it off to Shane. That's all I did."

I gazed up at the mould growing across the ceiling, looked at the flaking paint around the window. The bathroom felt too small for all the anger I could feel swelling inside.

"What'd you think Tim" Curly asked, his voice suddenly sharp. "Wade's family ain't no better off than us, you think they let me stay there for free? You think anyone ever gave me anything?"

"And that was the only thing you could do to get money, was it huh?"

I looked at him again, and he tilted his head back slightly, his eyes suddenly hard and bitter.

"Well, I guess I could have smuggled a few pounds in like you used to do. Except its one rule for you and another for everyone else, ain't it?"

I grabbed him round the collar and slammed him into the wall, his head snapping back against it with a dull thud.

"If you can't see there's a world of difference between selling smack and selling grass then you must be as dumb as your teachers always said" I hissed, my face close to his.

He stared back at me evenly, his fists against my chest as he tried without any success to push me back.

"Shane was bringing it in anyways," he said. "I couldn't do nothing to stop that. If it wasn't me doing the pick up it would have been someone else. It was easy money, that's all. I never meant for him to sell it on our turf, I swear I didn't. I tried to stop him doing that."

I shoved him harder against the wall. "You think the turf is all I care about? I couldn't give a fuck about that, I'll take it back tomorrow if I want, Shane ain't shit."

"Tim," he said, his voice sounding slightly strained. "I needed the fucking money, okay. Do you know what it was like for me without you, huh?"

I loosened my grip on him a little, feeling the guilt rising up again.

"_Promise you'll never leave me" _he used to whisper every night back when we were little kids, which seemed so unimaginably long ago, and yet so close that I could still feel the rough linen of the boys home bed. And holding on to me like I was the one that could stop him falling, and even then I'd known I had nothing good to give him.

"I'm sorry" he said, his eyes gazing down at my chest, not meeting mine. "I know I let you down."

I shook my head, pressed my hand into his shoulder again, wondering if I'd ever be able to look at him and not see that scared little six year old he'd once been, and still was in some place inside.

"What's done is done" I told him, still standing close to him. "But there ain't gonna be no more Curly, you hear me?"

He nodded, biting down on his lip. "I ain't going to. I just didn't know what else to do, and then Shane offered me all that money…" he trailed off, staring over my shoulder toward the window, looking like he wanted to be anywhere else but here.

I lifted my fist and touched it lightly to his jaw, right on the spot where I had been planning on cracking him when I saw him. But things were never so simple when it came to him, I couldn't seem to punch him any easier than I could have hugged him.

"You ain't gotta be sorry" I said, and it didn't seem enough to just say that. And then I thought of Shane again, who had seen my brothers need and stepped into it, who had been there when it should have been me who was there, and I knew who was deserving of that punch.

I let go of Curly and stepped back, pulled my cigarettes out of my shirt pocket and offered him one. He took it, still not looking at me.

I lit up one for myself and tossed the lighter to Curly, wondering what either of us could say that would make anything alright. What's done is done, and yet I could see as much regret in him as I felt in myself.

"I'll be back later" I said, shoving open the door again.

"Tim, where you going?" he asked, and I turned back to look at him.

"Just wait here" I said shortly, and he gave me that look again that could take me back down the path of time, that desperate pleading of someone who had only been abandoned.

"I'll be back" I said again, trying to make it sound like a promise.

"Fuck" I heard him say as I walked out, soft despair in his tone.

Ponyboy's POV:

I leaned against the counter of The Dingo, trying to catch the eye of the girl serving drinks. She looked too busy flirting with a couple of the Brumly boys to come over so I could order a coke. I sighed and turned back around, glanced over to where Two-Bit was waiting and gave him an exaggerated shrug.

"What'dya want?" she asked, coming over finally and giving me a bored stare, like I was interrupting her day or something.

"Two cokes" I said, putting a dollar down on the counter.

I glanced down the counter as the conversation turned heated between the boys from Brumly. Shane Buchanan was standing in front of another hood, his stance overly casual in a way I knew well. The way someone stands before they swing a punch.

"You better have it all, not a dollar less" he said, his tone firm.

"I got it out in the car" the other guy replied, his tone giving away his nervousness. Buchanan was known for a short temper at the best of times, and from what I'd heard he was strung out more often than not these days.

"We'll go get it then, huh?" Shane said, turning and heading toward the door.

"That all?" the girl asked, banging the cokes down in front of me.

I took them and went over to the table Two-Bit was seated at.

"I like it how the service is always real friendly here" I said, looking over at the girl again.

He laughed. "Hell, ain't no smiles on minimum wage."

"I s'pose" I said, thinking about it. Maybe he was right, maybe there wasn't no happiness to be had in a place like this. Somewhere the person trying to make an honest wage was living hand to mouth, while the Brumly boys were getting rich selling drugs. It almost made me miss how things had been before, when the only enemy we had was the soc's. Now they mostly kept to themselves, yet we seemed to have only found something else with what to destroy ourselves.

"Hey, what's going on?" Two-Bit said, turning in his seat as yells came from the parking lot outside.

"Guess that guy didn't have the money" I muttered.

"Huh, what's that?" he asked, looking back at me quickly. "Fight huh? We should go check it out!"

I sighed. "Buchanan's wasting some guy I guess, heard him talking up at the counter."

Two-Bit stood up to get a better view. "Nah," he said, suddenly excited. "Hell, it's Shepard wasting Buchanan! Come on man!"

He grabbed my shirt and dragged me up, rushing toward the door along with pretty much everyone else inside.

I followed him outside, joined the others standing watching on as Tim hauled Shane up off the ground by his collar and drove a fist into his face. The crowd stood around in silence, excited tension in the air. At moments like these, I could almost understand what drove Tim and Shane, what had driven Dally. I watched them fighting in the gravel, the sun behind them, heard the wail of sirens approaching, and knew that for them, they found their freedom in a reckless life. Maybe in a way things would be easier if that was all I wanted too, if I couldn't see that it could only end in a cell or a grave.

"Someone call the fuzz?" Two-Bit said beside me, disbelief in his voice as the police car turned into the lot. I shrugged, looking over to the two boys again. Tim appeared not to have noticed the fuzz pulling up behind them, he swung another fist even as the two officers climbed out of the car.

A chorus of mutters rose up from the crowd, cussing out the fuzz.

"Behind you Tim, behind you!" someone yelled.

Tim paused and turned, one fist still drawn back, and as he did so one of the cops grabbed his arms.

"Aww, damn" Two-Bit said, laughing. "Shit he been out less than a week and he's already getting hauled in."

I watched as Tim was shoved against the side of the car and handcuffed, while the dissenting noises from the other boys grew louder, I heard a bottle smash on the ground nearby.

Tim turned back before he was put in the police car and his gaze swept across us, a slight smile on his lips. He glanced down at Shane, who was pulling himself to his knees painfully, then looked up again, looked straight at me.

He held my eyes, his smirk gone suddenly, something in his expression that I couldn't understand. I watched the cop slam the door, heard another bottle smash, this one closer to the police car.

"He's on parole" I said, suddenly understanding.

* * *

A/N: Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed the chapter.

Replies to reviewers: (and you know what, its 2am again!)

Nighttime writer: Thanks, hope you like the update.

Ale Curtis-Carter: I hope you like the chapter, sorry I didn't update sooner, I been busy!

Arreya: Thanks for the review, I'm so glad you think Darry was in character. He's one of my favorite characters, so I kind of hesitate to write him in case I mess him up!

Hahukum Konn: Thanks I'm glad you liked it.

Flipwise: That's cool, I always read a/n in fics too. Ta for the review!

Starbryte234: Sorry to keep you waiting for the chapter. Yeah, cowboy curtains, lol. The joys of renting, you gotta put up with the landlords crap taste in décor.

NittanyLizard: Thanks for the nice review, I'm glad you liked the Tim/Darry interaction. I find them a lot of fun to write together for some reason.

FoxFyre33: Hey no apology needed, your review made my day! I really appreciate your nice comments, and I'm glad you've been reading and enjoying the story.

Bessie: Thanks for your comments; I'm glad it came across that Darry told Tim out of genuine concern, and nothing else. I hope you like this chapter too.

Trine: Thanks, I'm glad you liked it. Darry's really hard to write (well I find it hard) so I'm glad it seems to be working!

Snowgurl54: Thanks, I'm glad you liked it. Well, now ya know what Tim does!


	11. Whirlwind

Disclaimer: S E Hinton owns The Outsiders

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Curly's POV

I sat forward on the couch at the sound of a car hauling up outside, taking a quick drag on my cigarette. The door slammed and I sank back into the seat as I heard unfamiliar voices. I stubbed the cigarette out into the full ashtray, looked around the empty, darkening room. Tim had been gone two hours now, I wondered what the hell he was doing. I lit up another cigarette, not knowing what else to do.

I got up and walked over to the window for about the twentieth time that evening, scanned the dusky street for the oncoming glow of headlights. But there was nothing, maybe there never would be. If Tim didn't bother coming back for me, I couldn't blame him. I wished he would have belted me like I could see he wanted to, it was worse to know that he thought I was beyond saving.

I just wanted him to come back, and I never wanted to have to face him again. I went back over to the couch, sat down and shook my cigarette packet into my hand, gazed at the pills resting in my palm. I could just tilt my head back and toss one down, let everything inside that was rough be soothed. But Tim might come home, and there must be a limit to how many times he could forgive me.

I tipped the pills back into the packet and shoved it into my pocket as I heard footsteps crossing the porch. The brief hope and fear that flared died fast, they were too light to be Tim's. I patted my other pocket to check that my switchblade was there and went to the door, leaned against the wall beside it and waited. A knock came, and I rested my fingers on the handle.

"Who's that?" I called back. In this neighborhood, living this life, you never could be too careful.

"Ponyboy" came the reply.

Ponyboy? I got on okay with the kid when I ran into him, but we wasn't exactly on terms where he paid visits to my house.

I swung the door open and let him in, thinking it was kind of late for him to be out alone. That brother of his was a hard bastard, although sometimes I wondered what it would be like to have someone who cared so much.

He glanced around the lounge, squinting in the shadows.

"Tim ain't here?" he asked, a kind of finality in his tone.

"Nah," I said, flicking on the bulb above us. "You wanna beer, coffee?"

He shook his head, gave me a look that was sad and sorry both.

I leaned back against the wall and waited for him to speak, starting to understand that he was about to tell me something I didn't want to hear. _"Curly was an average downtown hood, tough and not very bright…"_ Ponyboy had written of me in that story of his that was passed out in class at school, but I wasn't so dumb as everyone might think. I understood that look that comes before someone delivers bad news.

"Tim got arrested today, down at the Dingo" he said.

I was about to sneer and reply with "so tell me something new", and then I felt something inside me clenching hard like a fist was around my fucking guts. For a second I just stared at the window, looking at the way it was like a mirror in the night. Pony stood facing me still, his stance cautious. I could see myself slouched against the wall, and I wondered how it was that I looked so much older and tougher than him on the outside. I sure as hell didn't feel it, sure as hell.

"What happened?" I asked, and my voice came out cool and hard, just like it was supposed to.

"He was having a fight with Shane Buchanan, and the fuzz pulled up. Hauled 'em both in."

I wished that I hadn't turned the lights on so I could be standing in the darkness still, I wished Ponyboy wasn't here so I could sink those pills and fall into numbness. But just like Tim had said, what's done is done. So I just stood straight, kept my expression still. I remembered how Tim had slammed me against the wall, and I had thought he would hit me then. But it seemed he had found someone else he thought more worthy of his punches, and I remembered what I should have never forgotten. That the worst thing you could imagine would never be as bad as what really happened.

Ponyboy sighed a little and glanced over at me, looking apologetic.

"I gotta get back home" he said. "I was just going for a run, training for track, you know."

"Yeah" I agreed, even though I couldn't imagine running for any other reason than to get away from the fuzz.

"I just thought I should come and tell you, in case you didn't know."

"Thanks" I said briefly, feeling tired out. Tired of everything, tired of being scared all the time. Tim had been out a week and now he was back inside, and it was all my fault. Ponyboy sparked up a cigarette and gave me a rueful grin.

"I'm trying to cut down for track, but what the hell."

I wondered if I could raise bail, if bail was even given to someone already on parole. All this had come for money, and all that money that had passed through my hands I had pissed away; on drugs, booze, parties, and whatever else that I couldn't even remember.

"You reckon they'll give him bail?" I asked Pony, on the remote chance that school maybe actually taught him something useful. Sure never did for me, no math teacher ever told me how to figure it out when the power bill costs $10.00 and there's only $8.00 left after rent.

He shrugged in reply, like it was something he'd never had to give any thought to. "I dunno, I guess you could try ringing the station and asking 'em."

He turned and cast a look outside, frowned slightly. "Look, Curly, I really gotta go."

"Yeah, sure" I said, remembering about his brother. Darry kind of reminded me of Tim, in a way that I couldn't put my finger on. Something in the way he looked at you, that steady, hard gaze. But I remembered the time me and Pony were picked up by the fuzz for drinking in the street, and our brothers had been called down to the station. Tim had shook his head slightly at me, smiling a little like he was kind of amused, while Darry had just given Pony a stony glare that made me pity him.

And that made me cringe in shame and guilt again, because whatever Tim hadn't done for me, I knew he had given me everything he had to give. He would never just leave me to sit in a cell, he would always come and get me, give me that smile that was indulgent, and maybe just a little proud.

"I'm gonna come use your phone" I told Pony. "We ain't got it put on yet."

"Alright" he agreed, "you gonna find out about the bail?"

"Yeah, not that I got no fucking cash. Guess that can always be sorted easy enough."

I was pretty sure I could remember the way to the chop shop Tim had taken Shane's car to, and finding another set of wheels to deliver wouldn't be any trouble. I couldn't even remember being taught how to steal a car, just seemed like one of those things I was born knowing.

I grabbed my smokes and followed Ponyboy out the door into the night. I glanced up at the sky, looked at the hard glittering points of the stars. When Tim was first inside I used to go and sit outside Wade's house, look up at the sky and the stars above like a blanket over the world. Look at how big it was and how deep and how far, and it made me feel better to see there was something so much bigger than any of us here, bigger than the prison and bigger than Tulsa, something that would be there when we were all dead and long forgotten. And under all that, being a fifteen year old hood choking back tears for a missing brother was nothing but a blink in time.

"Hey Curly, who's that?" Ponyboy asked, wariness in his voice.

I snapped my attention back to the scene, remembering what Tim had said to me what seemed a long time ago _"look where you walk and you'll do better"._

A car cruised slow on the opposite side of the street, dark figures behind the windows staring at us. Staring at me. I kept walking, trying to suss them out from the corner of my eye.

"I dunno, I can't tell in the dark" I replied. The rest of the street was deserted, just us and the car and the shadows cast by streetlights. It was real quiet in this neighborhood, not like when we lived downtown. It was a different kind of rough out here, the kind of rough where the neighbor smiles at you over the fence and beats his wife behind a closed door. I liked it better downtown, where you could tell who was the bad guys.

The car came to a stop and the doors swung open, four people stepped out, not speaking, their silence broken by the scrap of steel along the ground as they pulled out weapons.

"Keep walking" I said low to Ponyboy.

"You know who they are?" he asked again, his voice as low and steady as mine.

I took another quick glance, recognized them as boys that ran with Shane Buchanan. They were crossing the street toward us now, still silent, one swinging a steel pipe, another winding a chain around his fist. I felt a hard knot of fear inside, because we were all alone on this dark, silent street, because Tim wasn't going to come, he was gone for fighting the president of the gang that came for me now, gone because I had betrayed him.

I shoved Ponyboy. "Run, go on, get outta here."

He shook his head sharply. "No, Curly, I ain't going."

There was fear in his voice, but he stayed beside me, his steps matching mine.

"Just go, they only here for me" I snapped, pushing his shoulder harder. I was bigger than him and he stumbled back. "Ain't no reason for you to get your head bashed in for shit I done."

He swung his glance from me to the gang coming, his eyes wide and bright. "I'll get Darry and the other boys" he said quietly before he bolted down the street, his legs pumping faster than I'd have believed.

I stopped and turned to face the enemy, watching the hard determination on their faces as they walked across the street, one of them smacking the steel pipe into his palm over and over, the message coming to me clear in the dull, repetitive thud.

I thought again of Tim standing with me in the bathroom earlier, turning back to face me before he left. I thought of how hard I had held onto him, for as long as I could remember, following in his footsteps so that he would never be able to leave me, and I had never thought that maybe he was there just because he was my brother and he loved me.

I watched the boys come closer, and the fear faded away, I just felt calm inside, like this was the way it was always meant to be.

"Tough luck Shepard," the one with the pipe said, stepping forward to stand in front of me. "I hear Tim's back inside. Looks like he still ain't realized, he ain't running the show round here anymore. Guess we just gonna have to show him who is."

I shook my head a little. "Don't matter what you do. Tim ain't gonna give up, you know he ain't."

He swung his pipe in an arc outward, raised it and pointed it at me.

"I think he is, 'cause we're gonna hit him where it hurts" he said, the streetlight above us highlighting his grim smile. I looked into the cold depths of his eyes, saw beyond his smile and his swinging pipe, right to the place inside that was lost and lonely and hurt. I didn't know him and I'd known him all my life. He was Tim, he was me, he was all of us.

"It's alright" I said, meaning everything, love in my heart. And I stepped to meet him, going to reap the whirlwind, like the preacher in church used to say when I was a kid, back when my mother was still alive and had hope for us that we'd be something other than what we had become.

He swung and I thought of my mother, thought of my brother, and there was so much I wished I could take back.

"You're gonna die Shepard" he yelled as the pipe came down, and I hoped to God he was right.

* * *

A/N: I'm sorry I couldn't update sooner, I hope you guys are bearing with me. The next update will be much faster! 

Replies to reviewers:

Hahukum Konn: Thanks, I'm glad you liked it.

Holger Dansk: I'm glad you liked how Tim wasn't too hard on Curly, I was going to have him be a lot 'meaner' about it, but it didn't really work out that way.

Ale Curtis-Carter: Sorry, I guess that chapter wasn't too good. Thanks for reviewing!

Flipwise: Thanks, I'm glad you liked that part. It was pretty hard to write!

Starbryte234: Thanks for the review, sorry about ending the chapter like that, I am trying to get into the 'cliffhanger' endings, but maybe it's not a good thing!

Nighttime writer: Thanks I'm glad you enjoyed the chapter.

Kikoken: I know what you mean about the scene being 'unfinished'. I was trying not to make it too much of a climax, but reading back on it, it does seem somewhat…lacking, I guess. Thanks for the review, it's so good to get another perspective on the story, that's the great thing about this site!

Megan: Thanks for your review, it really touched me. I'm real sorry to hear what you've been through. You know this story and my other one has been my 'escape' through a really hard time, so if it could do the same for you, then that really means a lot to me. Thanks again.

Betty: You'll find out! Thanks for the review.

Tensleep: I'm really glad you're enjoying the story so far. I'm glad you like the relationship stuff too, for some reason I find it endlessly entertaining to write! It's actually just been winter for me though; I'm in the southern hemisphere.

Nittany Lizard: Thanks for your comments, I'm so glad you liked that scene. The thought of S E Hinton actually reading my attempts at messing with her characters is terrifying though!

kate: Thanks for the nice review, I'm glad you like the different pov's. I find it hard switching between them and I sometimes worry that they all sound too much the same. I'm glad it's going okay so far, and hopefully someone will point out if I get off track!

Snowgurl54: Thanks I'm glad you liked that chapter and Tim's reaction to Curly.

Tristan: Thanks I'm glad you're enjoying the story, it's not finished, actually there's heaps to go still, you'll be bored sick of it before I finish!

AJ: Thanks for the review.

Reviewer: Sorry for taking so long, don't worry I will definitely be finishing the story.


	12. Hell on Earth

Disclaimer: S E Hinton owns The Outsiders.

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Ponyboys POV

My feet hit the pavement, the slap of my shoes against the asphalt thudded in my head, and that was the only sound, driving out that other sound. That sickening, muffled smack of steel hitting something soft and yielding, like flesh, like bones. I ran and I ran, and I wasn't fast enough, like a nightmare even worse than the ones I had after mom and dad died.

The streets were empty around me, and I couldn't run fast enough to help Curly, couldn't run far enough to escape the sound of the beating. I thought of how Curly had stood in his lounge and stared at me, the way for a minute I had seen all the pain under his hard expression, and the way Tim had looked at me outside the Dingo. I had to be fast enough, because they were hoods and they were criminals, but they were brothers too, and that had to count for more.

I urged my legs faster, sucked huge gulps of the clear air, sprinting like I never had at any track meet.

I stumbled in through the front door of my house, ran full tilt into Darry as he stood in the kitchen, let him grab my shoulders and straighten me before him.

"What's the hurry Pony?" he asked, his eyes narrowing slightly in concern.

"Curly!" I managed to stammer. "He's getting beat up, we gotta go help him!"

Darry frowned slightly, his expression suddenly guilty in a way that made no sense.

"Look, Pony," he muttered, and I felt like screaming in frustration at his slow words. "I'm not gonna tell Tim how to discipline Curly, it's probably the only way he knows."

"Tim?" I repeated, feeling lightheaded from my run, from the welling desperation. "What the hell? Darry it ain't Tim, its boys from Brumly, they're killing him…" my words tumbled together, I grabbed at Darry's shirt frantically pulling him toward the door, trying to make him understand. We had lost mom and dad, we had lost Johnny, we had lost Dally, and that had to be enough.

"Aww shit" Darry said, realization on his face now. "Those damn Shepard boys…" he said under his breath as he grabbed his car keys, yelling over his shoulder toward the lounge.

"Let's go boys!"

Soda and Steve raced into the kitchen a split second later, without even an explanation, without knowing why or what, just that there was action and they wanted to be there.

We jumped in thecar and headed back down the road, Darry's foot to the floor, while I explained between heaving pants what had happened. I really had to cut down on the smoking, I could hardly catch my breath.

"The Brumly boys huh?" Steve repeated, his eyes shining in the dark of thecar with anticipation and excitement. "Damn, those boys are tough; Curly's a blasted fool to mess with them."

I shivered a little, remembering the weapons they had carried, even Curly had looked scared.

"They won't hurt him too bad Pony" Soda said, putting his hand on my arm. "They wouldn't dare, be an even bigger fool who messes with Tim."

He sounded so sure I could believe him for a moment, but then I remembered the grim silence of the Brumly boys as they surrounded him, not looking for fun or a fight, just there to do business. And then that sound, the pipe coming down, and one of them screaming a promise _"your're gonna die."_

"Why'd you think it was Tim?" I asked Darry, suddenly remembering and wondering about what he had said. For all the wrong I'd seen and heard he'd done to other people, the worst I'd ever seen him do to Curly was cuff him round the ear. Hell, a couple of times I'd even wished Darry would be half so soft on me as Tim was on Curly.

Darry didn't reply, just slammed on the brakes suddenly and cursed as he threw his door open. I jumped out after him and stood still for a minute, waiting for the pipe to come down on one of us, feeling disorientated in the darkness and silence, the empty street. I looked around, there was no one here. We'd come to the wrong spot, and now it was too late …

"Curly, can you hear me?" I heard Darry say, and I spun round. Darry was crouching down on the footpath, Soda and Steve going to kneel beside him, and before them Curly was lying on his side, his arms and knees pulled around himself in futile defense.

"Is he alright?" I asked, squatting down beside Darry. For a minute he didn't look so bad, just kind of peaceful, like he had just fallen down drunk. Then I saw the way his dark hair glistened wetly under the streetlight, saw the way the concrete around him was damp in the rainless night.

Darry laid a hand on Curly's shoulder, his face hard and angry, but sad too. "Just hold on" he said, his tone gentle. "Hold on a while longer kid."

I stood up and watched as Darry hauled Curly up and carried him to the car, his body limp in my brother's arms. I wondered if he was still alive, if he was how much longer he would be. I felt sick inside, I couldn't understand the sort of person that could stand before a kid and swing a pipe into his body. It was other greasers that had done that to him, our own kind, who were supposed to stick together.

"I'm gonna get him to the hospital, you two go on home," Darry said firmly to me and Soda.

I shook my head. "Let me come" I begged, not sure why I wanted to come, but somehow I felt responsible. I had left him after all, left him to the mercy of people who had none.

Darry gave me a quick glance. "Alright, but you can wait in the car. I don't need any questions about what you was doing out on the streets with him."

I got in the front seat and waited while Darry laid Curly in the back seat then came round and got in beside me.

"Go straight home" he said to Soda, leaning out the window. "Try and get hold of Tim, tell him to meet us at the hospital."

I glanced back at Soda and Steve walking away together as Darry drove off, then I remembered.

"Tim got arrested today, he had a fight at the Dingo."

"Christ he don't learn…" Darry muttered, shaking his head. He twisted quickly to look back at Curly. "Pony, is he breathing?"

I felt cold at the words, I leaned over the back of my seat to look closely at him, and I thought that no matter how many times I saw people beat up like that, I'd never get used to it. The orange cast of streetlights slid over his face as we drove beneath them, and he looked too young to be lying there like that, like Johnny had, like Dally had.

"Damnit Pony, is he?" Darry asked sharply.

I looked closer, saw the slight rise of his chest, and heard the rasping sound of him taking another shallow breath.

"Yeah" I said, "he's breathing."

I stayed twisted like that in my seat, watching him all the way to the hospital, I thought maybe if I could just keep watch he would just keep breathing,

Tim's POV

I slouched against the wall outside the police station, waiting for Wade to turn up. I felt tired and shitty after a night in the cells, but I figured I should be counting myself lucky they weren't sending me back to the slammer for violating parole. Not that they hadn't tried to their damndest to pin something on me, but Shane must have sat just as tight as me, because first thing in the morning one of the cops had come into the holding cell and told me stiffly that they weren't pressing charges, I was free to go.

I wished I had a cigarette left, I'd sat up half the night in the cell smoking the rest of my pack, trying not to think about everything, trying not to think about Curly. I could still see him standing there in the bathroom with me, looking at me with bleak acceptance on his face, like he was waiting for the worst I could do. And then I had walked out, walked away because I couldn't punch him. But looking at Ponyboy standing outside the Dingo as the cops hauled me in, I had realized that I _had _done the worst I could do. Leave him. He would rather anything than that, rather be hit, rather be yelled at.

I sighed and looked up and down the street impatiently, it was 7am and I was supposed to be at work in half an hour. I would have called Darry to pick me up on his way, but fucked if I knew the guys number.

Wade had sounded tense on the phone, "Yeah, I'll be there in a sec" he'd said and slammed the receiver in my ear before I could say anything else. I wondered what all else had gone down overnight, maybe Shane's boys were out for revenge for me taking their leader down like that, and the thought made me grin. Let 'em come, let 'em come after me with everything they had, the worst they could do was kill me, and I wasn't scared of that. I didn't believe in Hell and the devil and all that shit. Hell was right here on Earth, and the devil was only what lurked in that dark place inside yourself.

Wade's car pulled up outside, skidding to a rough stop beside the footpath. I got in and slumped back in the seat, gave him a smirk.

"You shoulda seen the short work I made of Buchanan" I said, faking a punch at the dash. "So that's one down that won't wanna cross me again anytime soon" and I gave Wade a meaningful stare.

But the effort was lost on him, he was just staring out the window, his hands clenched on the steering wheel.

"Shit" he muttered. "Your brother, Tim…"

"What about him, like you give a shit man. You should have fucking told me what he was doing, and don't think I'm gonna just let it go…"

"Tim" Wade interrupted, not looking worried by my threats to his wellbeing. "Shut up a minute. Curly's in the hospital."

"Hospital?" I repeated blankly. "What happened?" That kid had been to the hospital more times than I could count, he was always doing some dumb thing to show off and busting himself up.

"Some of Shane's boys got a hold of him, beat him up bad. Sodapop Curtis called me last night, he was trying to find you."

"How bad?" I asked casually, even though I could hardly contain the fury that surged inside me then. Whoever touched my brother touched me, and I would make them pay.

Wade shook his head a little. "Aw fuck" he said, his voice suddenly full of rough emotion. "They messed him up, the doctors, they saying he might not wake up."

He abruptly reached down and flicked on the radio, turned it up so loud that the rhythm beat like a pain deep in my head. Wade kept staring straight ahead, driving us to the hospital where my brother lay, messed up. But he had to be alright, he had to wake up, and I tried to tell myself that I wasn't afraid.

The Brumly boys had come for revenge. Come for my brother, who never should have been involved in any of this in the first place.

"Why didn't you tell me he was dealing smack?" I asked Wade, switching the radio off, anger welling up over the fear deep inside, burying it.

"Yeah?" Wade glanced over, his jaw clenched hard. "For what? So you could sit in your cell and go crazy over it?"

I banged my fist down against the dash. "I could have stopped him. I had a right to know." Above us the sun was high and bright in the sky, and I stared right at the white hot centre of it and felt the heat inside that beat through my veins, all the fucking rage in the world for my brother and the wrong done him and the wrong done me. There had to be some kind of justice I could take out there, some way to make this right.

Wade laughed a little. "You need to open your eyes man, that boys sixteen years old and he got a mind of his own. You been gone the last year, you ain't got no right to tell him shit, and you couldn't have stopped him."

I didn't know if what rose up in my throat then was anger or just the hard fucking truth, but either way it was a bitch to swallow. Maybe he was right, maybe I didn't have no right to tell Curly what to do while I was sitting in a jail cell. But I wasn't just Curly's brother, I was the gang president too, and he had to obey me for that reason if nothing else.

"You fucking crossed me" I said, hating the way everything suddenly seemed so confused. All my life there had been Curly, following me through this side of hell and back, forgiving me every sin, the one damn thing that I could depend on.

He'd done everything I'd ever asked of him, he'd followed me onto the path I set for him, and I felt sudden guilt for my anger at him the night before.

"I never crossed you" Wade replied evenly. "And neither did Curly, we were just trying to live Tim. There wasn't nothing I could do to stop him, he don't listen to no one but you."

And I hadn't been there, just like no one was ever gonna let me forget, like I couldn't forget. I tried to hold onto the anger, because without it there was only fear, but I could feel it ebb away. Wade had been there for my brother when I wasn't, and I didn't know why I'd ever expected anything more.

There had to be some greater enemy out there, someone who would be deserving of all the pain I could bring.

Wade pulled into the carpark at the hospital, and suddenly it felt too soon, I didn't want to know if my brother was hurt bad, if he might never wake up again. I shoved open the door and got out, looked back at Wade who was sitting in the car still, looking hesitantly at me.

"Uh, you want me to come?" he asked awkwardly, and I felt hopelessly grateful for his attempt at kindness.

"Guess Curly would like to see ya" I replied, wondering why I couldn't ever just say what I really meant.

We walked the corridors of the hospital together, swaggering, laughing, leering at the nurses, and inside I was so fucking scared it was all I could do to keep moving, keep on walking toward whatever I was going to see.

"Curly Shepard?" I demanded at the nurses' station. "What rooms he in?"

"Are you a friend of his?" the nurse asked me, looking me up and down without expression. I guess they must be pretty used to our kind coming in here.

"His brother" I said briefly, and if there'd been anything more left to fear, it would have been the sudden compassion on her face.

"Third room on the left, don't let all the machines scare you. I'll send the doctor in to talk to you shortly."

"Machines?" Wade repeated, glancing at me, and I shrugged in reply. I stepped in front of the third door on the left, and as I shoved it open I remembered Curly's words to me that night outside Bucks _"you can handle anything."_

All the machines, that nurse had said. And looking in that room I understood; all the machines, all that was keeping my brother alive, machines that drew breath for him, pumped blood for him. I didn't think I could take another step into the room where I could see him lying still in that bed, because I couldn't handle anything after all.

But I had promised Curly I'd come back, and maybe this was the only thing left I could do for him now. My legs felt weak under me but somehow they walked me into the room, up to the bed.

I looked down at him in his lifeless sleep, and I saw what I had done. I had found that enemy worthy of the pain, and it was me, and it hurt like nothing else ever had.

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A/N: Thank for reading and I hope you enjoyed the chapter. 

Sorry (again) for the slow update. I don't seem to have much spare time at the moment.

Eh so we are not allowed to reply to individual reviewers apparently, and I don't want my story to get taken down, so a collective thank you to everyone who reviewed. I appreciate it a lot, especially those reviewers who gave details on what is working well and what could be improved on, it really helps me out heaps. The parts I like writing best are the stuff between Curly and Tim, so it's cool to hear that readers like those parts too, and I always enjoy everyone's thoughts on it.

In the previous chapter, when Curly wished Tim would have 'belted' him, he meant it like a hard punch or whatever, not literally a belt. Sorry, probably my NZ slang slipping in again!


	13. Darkness

Disclaimer: S E Hinton owns The Outsiders

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Curly's POV

First there had been pain, and then there had been noise, now there was only this. Like falling or flying, just drifting and blackness and nothing else, and then voices and hands pulling at me, and then they were gone and there was only this. I could feel the weight of my body, it was broken and it seemed right that now I was broken on the outside too.

It hadn't always been that way, but then there had been that long ago night that was the beginning of my second life, the knife and the blood, and me and Tim hurt in the kind of way that no doctor can fix.

"Curly" there was a voice again, and someone touching me, and my mind pulled away from the sound and the touch, pulling away from whatever kept trying to drag me back to that broken world. I felt the pain in my body, in my head, all over, coming back to me and I wanted to go again.

"Curly" and it was Tim who was speaking, his hands roughly shaking my shoulders. "Curly" he said again, and I felt the pain, and felt the cold, so fucking cold everywhere, and Tim digging his fists into my arm, not letting me follow to where this final pain was leading.

"Curly" he said, repeating my name over in the same flat tone, his voice so dead and emptied out.

There was so much darkness, and I was scared that this was the end and this was all there was, the long plunge into dark and cold. Tim shook me again, roughly. I felt the pain swell up, but it was beyond the kind of hurt for tears, right then it was the only thing reminding me that I was still alive.

"Curly" Tim said. "Curly, just hold on."

I wanted to tell him that I was tired, I was hurt, and why should I hold on for him when he was the one who always left me. But I couldn't speak, I could only lay still and listen to him say my name again and again, until it was like a prayer, like a chain that held me here, held me to him.

I listened to his voice and drifted and memories came to me, the whole life I had lived that already seemed like a dream, and everywhere was always Tim, everywhere in my world, the biggest part of me. I had wanted to die, but even more than that I wanted my brother.

I could feel his hand clenched around my arm, clinging to me the same way I had clung to him all those years ago, and I wondered how I could have been so blind.

"Curly" my brother said. _"Please Curly."_

Ponyboy's POV

"Damn Hell!" Steve yelped as he swung in through the kitchen door. "Man, shit's going down out there!"

He boosted himself up onto the kitchen counter and glanced around the room. Darry held up an impatient hand to shush him and pointed at the phone tucked under his ear. He was on the phone to his boss, phoning in absent on Tim's behalf.

"Alright," he said into the receiver. "I'll go up to the hospital and see what he says, but I don't think the kids doing too good."

He hung up and shook his head, a slight frown on his face. "All he's worried about is how soon Tim's going to come back to work" he said with obvious disfavor. Darry wasn't the type of guy to mouth off about the boss, and that was the first time I'd ever realized that he didn't like him. Somehow that struck me as strange and sad, that someone like Darry had to bust his back every day for a man he didn't like.

"Man" Steve continued, "there's gonna be a war out there. Tim's boys are out for Brumly blood for what they done to Curly."

Soda turned from the sink where he was washing up the breakfast dishes.

"What do you think Tim's gonna do?" he asked, aiming the question at all of us.

Darry sighed. "Let's hope Tim sees sense for once." His gaze suddenly fell to me. "But I dunno…" he added, and the way he was looking at me scared me even more than when he was yelling at me.

Steve shook his head. "Hell, Tim ain't gonna forgive that. They disrespected him man."

Darry grabbed his keys and gave Steve a sharp look. "They hurt his little brother. That's what he ain't going to forgive" he said.

"Are you going to go and see Tim?" I asked Darry.

"Yeah, I told the boss I'd find out when he'll be back at work." I could see from the look on his face that he wasn't much looking forward to it, and I couldn't blame him. Like Tim wouldn't have better things on his mind than getting back to work.

"Can I come with you?" I asked him quietly while Steve and Soda were otherwise distracted with what means of revenge Tim might take.

"Didn't think you and Curly were good buddies?" he said questioningly. Darry didn't think much of Curly ever since we got drunk together.

I shrugged. "Not really, I just…" I trailed off, knowing if I told him I felt guilty he would just say not to be stupid, I did the right thing. Didn't stop me feeling that way though.

He surprised me by giving me a suddenly understanding look. "Okay Pony, but we're only staying a few minutes."

I nodded and waited while he spoke to Soda. "Stay out of whatever's going on" he told him firmly. "It's between Tim and the Brumly boys, I don't want to get involved with any trouble happening between that lot. They don't play around, you saw what they did to Curly."

Soda nodded and said "Yeah, I know Darry" while Steve swung his legs from his seat up on the bench, looking like he was impatient for us to leave so he could keep on talking to Soda about it. I felt worried about the whole thing, it was nothing new for hoods like Tim and the Brumly boys to fight each other, but what they had done to Curly was something else.

I followed Darry out the door, while Steve started up the conversation again.

"Hell, even Kane from the Vipers said he's coming after Brumly, he said that if…" and then the door shut behind me, cutting off the rest of his sentence.

Darry sighed and opened the car door. "You know it's never going to end" he said absently, not really to me.

"What do you think Tim's gonna do?" I asked Darry, repeating Soda's question. I figured he knew Tim better than I did, although that wasn't saying much. Curly was okay but Tim had always intimidated me.

"I don't know Pony" Darry said. "I think he really loves that kid, even if it might not seem that way."

I remembered me and Curly standing on the street on a winter's day, our cigarettes held against our fingers, faces set hard against a grimace of pain. _"The hell you kids doing?" _someone had snarled behind us, and Curly's eyes had widened slightly at the sight of his older brother. A second later the look was gone, a cool smirk in its place, but still that hopeful waiting in his eyes.

Tim had dealt him a smart smack around the ear, and Curly had cussed and dropped his gaze, slightly shamefaced. _"I'll swear I'll kill ya little shit's next time I see you doing that…" _Tim had said, his eyes still on Curly, and because I was looking I saw the pride in his usually impassive stare.

"I think so too" I said to Darry, and I suddenly wished that Curly hadn't turned away in shame and anger that day, that he had seen how Tim looked at him. He might be a hood, but maybe all Curly wanted was what we all want, that the people we love the most love us back.

I wondered what it would be like, if the person you loved the most was a hood and a criminal, a gang leader who stole cars and sold drugs and ran the streets.

"You think guys like that ever get tired of fighting?" I asked Darry, wishing I'd remembered to grab my cigarettes. I could have done with one right then.

"Nah" Darry said. "They don't grow up, they just get older."

"I get tired of fighting" I admitted, not looking at him. He was right, it would never end. Tim and his ilk would keep on fighting because it was the only thing they knew, they didn't want anything else because they didn't know what it was like to have anything else.

"Me too, Pony" Darry said as he turned into a car park.

I started getting nervous as we walked the hallway down to Curly's room, I wondered if he was going to be alright, I wondered if Tim knew I'd been with him, if he blamed me.

Darry went in first and I followed close behind him, feeling reassured by his calm confidence as he went up to the bed. I came up beside him and stopped cold at the sight, Curly lying so still, tubes in his arms, tubes in his nose. I moved slightly closer to Darry, dragged my eyes from Curly to look at Tim who was standing beside the window.

He turned to us and nodded coolly, his face expressionless. There was no guessing what he thought as his younger brother lay there, not awake but not sleeping, not breathing but oxygen pumping into his lungs.

"Darry, Ponyboy" he acknowledged after a pause, like it was an effort for him to remember our names. He walked over, the swagger still in his step, the hard pride I'd always seen still in him.

"Hi Tim" Darry said in a hushed tone, and I wondered why hospitals always had that effect on people. It wasn't like we were going to wake Curly up, and once that awful thought was in my head I couldn't get it out.

Tim still stood there looking at us, and even though I was scared I couldn't look away from him, from the dark, endless void of his gaze.

"How's he doing?" Darry asked, nodding his head toward Curly.

Tim shrugged. "The doctors are operating on him later, he got a split liver, broken ribs, collapsed lung, maybe head injuries but they don't know until he comes awake again."

His voice was flat as he listed his brother's injuries, and I wondered at how cold he was, how calm. Maybe I was wrong, maybe he didn't care so much about Curly after all.

"Do they think he'll be alright?" Darry asked.

For just a second I saw emotion in Tim's face, before he covered it with a hard sneer. "Those doctors don't know shit, he's a tough kid. Take more than that to…" he stopped, because even Tim couldn't say those words _kill him._

His eyes fell on me abruptly, and I felt myself flinch a little under his contained and unending anger. I wondered how Curly could love him so much, yet I knew that he did.

"Wade said that you were with Curly" he stated, and then fell silent, leaving me to take that as I would, to try and answer him.

I nodded, glad of Darry beside me. "I was, we were walking to my house."

"Who was it?" Tim asked, his eyes still holding mine.

"I don't know Tim" I said honestly. "I've seen them round with Shane Buchanan, but I don't know their names."

Tim nodded slightly and looked away out toward the window again. I looked down at Curly, at the rhythmic yet unnatural rise of his chest, at his skin so pale under his dark hair.

"I'm sorry" I said softly, and Tim and Darry both turned to me. "I just thought it would be better if I got Darry and the other guys to help, I thought then he would be okay."

"You did the best thing Ponyboy" Darry said firmly.

Tim looked from me to Darry, something unreadable on his face.

"Curly told me to go" I said, suddenly wanting Tim to know that, to know that his brother had courage that amounted to more than burning himself with cigarettes.

Tim allowed a slight smile toward me, and as relief at his favor settled on me, I thought maybe I could see why Curly tried so hard to please him.

"He thinks he can take on the goddamn world" Tim said, bitter pride in his tone.

I looked at Curly again, thinking of him laughing the night we got arrested together, his fearlessness for the cops and the cells, the way he swaggered ahead of me into the party at the Dingo, and I felt sick and sad inside that this might be all there ever was for him, that he might ever only be a tough, cocky kid who stared down a challenge at the world and lost.

"Uh Tim, the boss wants to know when you might be back at work?" Darry asked, his timing awkward, but I guess there was no good time to ask that question.

I waited for an angry answer, but Tim just shrugged and rubbed one arm idly, said "I dunno" in a blank sort of way.

I never thought Tim would be someone I could pity, but right then I did; I knew what it was like to be in that place where only pride kept you standing, where anything more than just standing straight seemed too hard.

"I'll just tell him in a couple of days, see how it goes?" Darry suggested, and Tim nodded, looking past us again as the door to the room opened.

I turned and saw a couple of guys I recognized from his outfit standing in the doorway, visibly nervous despite their casual slouch.

"We better get going" Darry said, putting his hand on my arm.

The two hoods came further into the room and stood staring at us in baleful silence as we passed them, and I saw their single minded longing for violence and vengeance.

I turned back before we left, looked at Tim again as he stood still casual and calm. He was watching us leave, and I realized that he hadn't looked at Curly once in the time that we'd been there.

"I really hope Curly's okay" I said.

He nodded a little in response, and pity welled up in me again. He stood there, the toughest hood in town, too scared to look down at his brother.

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A/N: Thanks for reading, I hope it's not getting too boring (but you can tell me if it is,I don't mind.) I am actually going somewhere with this! There should be some more action in the next chapter.  
Thanks everyone who reviewed the last chapter, I love to know what you think of the story. 


	14. What price

Disclaimer: S E Hinton owns The Outsiders

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Tim's POV

The door closed behind Darry and Pony, and I was bitterly relieved to see the backs of them. Staring at Darry across the bed, his brother beside him and mine on the bed between us, it suddenly seemed that everything I had ever done and wanted for in my life had been wrong. I should have done better by Curly, I should have tried to keep him in school and kicked his ass if he even looked like getting in trouble, I should have left the gang and stayed out of jail and been everything I never was. I should have realized that you pay for everything you have in this world, one way or another.

So I had paid, and Shane would pay. I looked at the two boys from my outfit, and this was what I could deal with. I could deal with hoods who stared at me with inarticulate anger and blood lust, I couldn't deal with Ponyboys last, sincere words, the pity for Curly that I'd seen in his eyes.

"Hey Tim" said Daniel. "He'll be okay, right?" he inclined his head down toward Curly, and what I saw on his face for a second just about floored me. These were boys from my outfit, they were supposed to be mean and hard and not give a fuck about anything, yet the emotion in their eyes as they looked at Curly was more than just hate for an enemy.

I just nodded because I felt like I was going to fucking lose it right there, I could feel something cold swirling inside me, and it seemed that everything in my life was drifting away from me and all I could do was stand there and watch it leave.

"He'll be alright, he's tough" I said even though I still couldn't look down at him. Because he was only flesh and blood, after all, and no one was too tough to die.

"So, what do you want to do Tim?" Greg asked. "Whatever you want man, just give us the word."

What I wanted was to go back to that day when me and Curly faced each other in the bathroom and say to him – its okay, let's go out and have a drink and play pool and forget the whole fucking mess.

But the boys stood there waiting, and I had to make my play. There couldn't be a moment's weakness, not from me, not even now.

"Don't touch Buchanan" I said first. "He's mine."

They nodded reluctant acceptance, and I saw that neither of them looked down at Curly again.

I looked out the window for a second, wondering what else to say. None of it seemed to matter a damn, not if Curly died. I could go out and kill every gang member in the world but I could never bring my brother back.

"I want the names of who did it" I said eventually. "I'm gonna take them out."

But there wasn't even satisfaction at that thought; just that hollow ache inside that felt like a truck had driven through my fucking guts.

"What else" Greg asked, his tone eager and impatient. He wanted to get out there and start cracking heads. I looked again at the window and the city spread out low before us, and I wanted to get out there too. I wanted to roam the streets under the blistering hot sun and smash skulls into the pavement, punch a blade through skin, drink whisky straight from the bottle and swagger through town with my boys behind me, go out into the streets where I was king and not here in this cool hospital room where I was helpless to do anything but watch and wait.

"What else?" Greg said again.

"Huh?" I asked, trying to keep my mind on the conversation. I should have been focused on revenge, but instead my thoughts kept drifting away, remembering way back to when me and Curly were just kids and our parents were still alive, back when I still had everything to lose.

"What else do you want us to do?" he said, his whole body looking coiled and ready to unleash.

I didn't want anything else. I wanted Curly to live and Shane to die, and that was all that my wishes in the world had come down to.

"Just get me those names" I said.

Greg slouched back against the wall and I saw his eyes flicker down toward Curly again, briefly.

"Shit, Tim" he said, and raised his head to look straight at me for the first time. "He's just a fucking kid" he said, his words stretched out, strained.

"Yeah" I said, and I wondered how I could have forgotten; Greg, whose little brother was kicked into a coma two years ago after he strayed into the wrong turf. Greg never found out who did it, and his little brother didn't die but he never woke up either. I could hardly remember the boy, couldn't even remember his name, just another kid from the gutter. But for Greg he was everything, every hood he saw could have been that attacker, and I never thought it was possible to feel pity for another person.

"You do what you want" I told him, the closest I could come to any expression of sympathy.

"Yeah" he said, nodding, and I could see in him the long ache for revenge that would never be sated.

"What are you gonna do?" Daniel asked me.

What I wanted was to go out on the streets, to get drunk and fight, but I couldn't bring myself to leave my brother there like that. This never would have happened if I had been there for him in the first place.

"I'm gonna stay here" I said, and while Daniel looked at me with something like disappointment, Greg nodded and I saw a different kind of respect from what he had shown me before.

They left and a nurse came into the room, looked at me and said, "We're going to take your brother down to theatre now."

I stepped aside to let her and another nurse go to Curly's bed and ready him to wheel out, and I looked down at him and then I couldn't take my eyes off him. Maybe this would be the last time I would see him alive, and in the midst of the pain that burned inside was peace. At least if he was dead then he could never be hurt again.

xxx

I stood staring out the window at the lights on all over the city, wondering what was happening out there in the night. There would be my boys out for revenge, there would be Shane's boys out for revenge, but no amount of blood would ever be enough to make up for this. Behind me I heard the hiss of the oxygen tank as Curly drew breath, and all the times I had wished he would shut up and stop running his mouth seemed like a curse.

He had been brought back up from surgery four hours ago, and the doctors had told me that the operation had gone well, if he woke up tonight then it would be a good sign, and I hadn't asked what it would mean if he didn't wake up. Six hours he'd been there, getting stitched back together. I had walked the halls of the hospital and sat in the waiting room and then walked some more, I had smoked two packets of Lucky Strikes, drank four cans of coke, gone to the bathroom and puked my guts out. I had punched my fist through a window and raked my arm back across the jagged panes, cutting so deep that it seemed I could have touched the place inside that hurt so bad.

And then they brought him back up, still alive, and if I believed in anything I would have got down on my knees and thanked it. I looked over my shoulder at the bed again, wishing he had someone better than me, someone who would sit beside him and hold his hand and tell him that they loved him, that there was something worth staying for.

At first I had, when I saw him that morning, holding his arm so hard the nurse scolded me for the bruises I left, saying his name, telling him to hold on. He had lain there, not moving, not turning toward me with that hopeful look when I said his name. It seemed like some revenge for all the times I had turned away from him when he wanted my attention, all the times I had left him because I knew he would always be there, all the times I had tried not to see how much he wanted from me.

I had stopped then, because asking anything of him seemed like something I had no right to do.

I turned to look over at him again, watching out the corner of my eye to see if he would move, blink, do anything. I remembered me and Curly staying up late while my mother was at work and my father was out drinking, sitting up watching the late night horror on TV. Curly had pulled his shirt up to cover his face, watching the movie out the side of it. I kind of felt the same way now, not wanting to face what was in front of me, not able to turn away completely.

I remembered the flickering screen lighting the room, Curly hiding his face in his shirt, and both of us jumping when the door suddenly opened. My mother had come in, still in her work uniform, looked at the movie on the screen and Curly huddled into the side of the couch.

"_Oh, Tim"_ she'd said, her voice gentle but admonishing, making me cringe inside with shame. She'd gone up to Curly and laid her hand on his head, looking down at him with sad tenderness. Then she looked to me, her expression hardening. _"You're supposed to look after him" _she said.

It was strange to look back on the scene, to see it so clear and unchanged in my head but with the mind of a nineteen year old, not the nine year old I'd been then. I saw how tired my mother was, how young she was. She was twenty four then, and at the time it had seemed grown up, but now I could see she was no more than a kid herself when I was born, a kid whose life had taken some hard and irreversible path.

"_Look after Curly, look after your brother" _she said to me, every damn day until it was like a fucking chant in my head. I understood it now for what it was, the plea of someone who was scared and tired and couldn't do it all alone. Someone who had no one to turn to, no one but me. Just like Curly had. And look where it got the both of them. I could run a gang and control the streets, but I couldn't look after the two people I should have kept safe, kept alive.

And I had walked the yard at the state pen' with murderers who would turn on you in a hot second, but I was too scared to go to my brother as he lay still and unconscious.

I turned so that I was facing Curly, leaned back against the cool pane of the window behind me and slowly brought my gaze down full on him. His eyes were closed still as he lay in his morphine sleep, and the thought that he might never open them again, never look at me and give me that cool, cocky smirk, was a sick and endless hurt.

I took a couple of steps closer, thinking again about my mother and the way she had put her hand on Curly's head, stroked his hair back and whispered to him _"it's okay baby" _and I wondered if she'd seen some dark future for him then.

I came up beside his bed, put my hand on his arm and gripped my fingers around his warm skin.

"You wake up, ya hear?" I said roughly, and watched his face for some sign of a response.

"Curly" I tried again after a minute, shaking his arm a little. "Wake up boy, come on."

And still he lay there, looking so peaceful, not trying to live up to anyone or anything for the first time in his life.

"Curly" I said, and dug my fist in, feeling welling despair

I willed him to wake up, my eyes locked on him, and in my head I made him a thousand promises …_I'll never tell you to shut your mouth again...I'll never yell at you again…I'll buy you everything you want…I'll never make you wash the dishes or clean up after parties…I'll buy you beers every night…I'll give you money…I'll let you do whatever you want…_

But still it didn't seem enough, I thought of the looks that he gave me sometimes and the long waiting I'd see in his eyes, and I knew somehow that it wasn't being told to shut up that he cared about, or having to clean up, what he wanted was something that I never gave him.

"What do you want?" I asked him, and clenched his arm harder, forgetting about the nurses. "What the fuck do you want anyway?"

And he opened his eyes, gazing hazy and unfocused at nothing, and he opened his mouth and mumbled a word I couldn't understand.

"What?" I asked, and dug my fingers into him, feeling like my heart was about to jump out my throat, the heavy despair that had settled on me suddenly lifting.

He shut his eyes again and said in a hoarse whisper "Stop."

"What? Stop what?" I asked, leaning closer over him,

"My arm" he said groggily, and I glanced down and saw my knuckles white I was gripping him so hard.

"Sorry" I said, letting go. "I'm sorry Curly, I'm so fucking sorry."

I straightened and turned away from him again, tears burning behind my eyes. I was sorry for everything, sorry for leaving him, sorry for the life I'd lived that had served him to the streets, sorry that it was him and not me lying there.

"Tim?" he said, his tone questioning.

"Yeah?" I said, not turning back still.

"Don't leave" he said, and I could hear fear and confusion in his voice.

I came back, put my hand down on his shoulder and held it there.

"I'm still here" I said, and he closed his eyes again, turned his head a little to rest his cheek against my hand. He seemed to go back to sleep, and I wondered how he could still trust me so much.

"I ain't leaving" I said, and I told myself that was one promise I was going to keep.

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A/N; Thanks for reading, and thanks everyone who reviewed the last chapter I really love to hear what you think about the story. 

This isnot really going the way I planned. I didn't mean to have the focus so much on Tim and Curly's relationship, but I guess I just find that the most interesting part to write. I hope the story is still okay anyway and you guys are enjoying it, but sorry if it has gotten a bit boring the last few chapters. I will try and get some more action going!


	15. The most wanted

Disclaimer: S E Hinton owns The Outsiders

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Curly's pov

"You're healing up well there son, we'll have you home in a week" the doctor said, straightening up from looking at the network of stitched wounds laid across my guts.

"A week" I repeated, feeling tired and sore but wanting to go home right then and there. Nothing worse than being stuck in this hospital, staring at the pale yellow walls, listening to the nurses shoes padding down the hallway outside and hoping they were coming to give me another shot of something, looking at all the tubes and needles they had sticking out of me everywhere. The only good thing was Tim, every time I woke up he was here, when I went to sleep he was here. I wondered why it took me nearly getting killed for him to notice I was alive.

"Can't I go home today?" I asked, trying to turn my head to look at the doctor as he walked away.

He held up a dismissive hand as he walked out the door, and I looked at Tim who was standing beside my bed. Tim just rolled his eyes toward the doctor and feigned a helpless shrug, then got busy rolling a cigarette.

I wasn't used to seeing my brother like this, hanging around me and listening to the people in charge instead of telling them to get fucked and doing what the hell he wanted. For a second I just wanted him to be back to normal, to grab my arm and haul me out of bed, tell the doctors to piss off and get out of our way.

"You going out for a smoke?" I asked Tim.

"Yeah, I won't be long" he said.

"Man, get me out of this fucking bed and take me too would ya?" I begged him. I didn't feel much like smoking, just breathing in and out hurt bad enough, but I'd been in this bed for three days and now they wanted me there a week more, I felt even worse at the thought.

"Nah" he said, shaking his head. "I ain't touching them fucking things" and he indicated the IV lines coming from my arms that connected me to the equipment beside me, tying me to the bed, to this room.

I wanted to argue but I felt too tired, even as the IV line dripped a steady flow of morphine into my arm, I could still feel the slow muffled pain. I could feel myself being pulled back to unconscious, dreamless sleep already as Tim watched me, his cigarette hanging unlit from his mouth, one hand idly flicking his lighter.

"Alright kid?" he asked, and there was nothing in his expression, but I could still remember how he'd held onto me so hard.

"Yeah" I said, trying to keep my eyes open. "Just tired."

"It's that shit" Tim said, looking at the morphine drip.

That made me remember everything that had happened before I wound up in here, and even the morphine wasn't enough to dull the guilt that rolled through me again. I wondered how I could ever make Tim understand why I'd done it when I didn't even really know myself. I wanted the money, but it was something more than that too, some way to try and bury the fear. I'd always known that, somehow, he would find out, but he'd been in prison and it seemed so far away.

"Tim" I said, and he looked over at me.

But then I couldn't say anything else, it seemed too hard to think of the words, to put them together.

"What?" he asked impatiently, his eyes already sliding away from me toward the window, he kept staring out there like he was wondering what he was missing out on in the streets.

Just more of the same Tim, more of the same, I wanted to tell him.

I let my eyes half close and watched Tim turn toward the door like he'd heard someone coming. I wondered if it was another nurse coming to give me some more drugs, or one of the boys from the gang coming to see me. Most of them had been in, but the doctors never let anyone apart from Tim stay for long. The fuzz had been in to see me too, as soon as I woke up. I just told them I couldn't remember anything and when they tried to bully me into an answer the doctor came in and told them to get out.

"_My patient is not in any condition to answer your questions"_ he'd snapped, and hurried them out the door in the arrogant, abrupt manner that pissed me off so much when it was turned on me, but pleased me so much then to see used on the cops.

Tim was still looking expectantly at the door, and a second later Ponyboy and his brother Darry came in.

Tim lifted his chin and said "Hi Darry, Ponyboy."

"Hey Curly, you feeling okay?" Pony asked, coming over to me.

"Yeah" I said, trying to get my eyes open properly again. I didn't much like having visitors, didn't do my rep no good for anyone to see me laid up like this. But even so, I felt it touching me some place inside to see how many people cared. I would have thought no one ever would have given me a second thought if I lived or died.

"Hi Curly" said Darry, coming over to stand beside Pony. His face was as unreadable as Tim's as he gazed down on me with those cold eyes. "I didn't think you were gonna pull through for a while there. I don't think a lot of people did."

He looked up and over me, across to Tim, and I tried to turn my head to see my brothers face, wondering what was passing between them right then. Tim held Darry's eyes for a minute, and then he glanced down and caught me watching him. I thought he'd be pissed off, but he just gave me a slight smile, sad and all knowing. I wished I wasn't so doped up on Morphine, I wished I could grasp what I saw in that look, and all I knew was that it depressed the hell out of me.

"How you doing anyhow?" Darry asked me.

"Okay" I said. "I'd feel a lot better if them doctors would let me have a beer and a smoke" and they all laughed even though it was a dumb joke. I guess that was just the kindness you showed for the hurt kid, the kid you thought wouldn't wake up.

I remembered Tim telling me that Darry had been the one who found me and took me to hospital.

"Hey, thanks and all" I muttered to him, because I never was real good at thanking people.

He nodded acknowledgement, and I kind of got the impression he didn't like accepting thanks any more than I liked giving it.

"You remember any of what happened?" Pony asked me.

In between sleeping and waking I had remembered strange snatches of it, like the pipe hitting the palm of the boy who held it and the hollow sound of it, the eternal second that me and him and stared into each others eyes and recognized what we saw. I remembered the ground beneath me when I fell, how it was still warm in the night. I'd looked up and seen the dark shapes above me lit in the moonlight, and I'd thought of how many times it would have been me and Tim standing there like they were, another hapless sucker on the ground at our feet. I never thought it would be me down there.

I remembered how the pipe had come down and they'd swung their boots into me and the pain had rolled down on me like an avalanche.

I remembered pulling my knees up to try and block them and seeing the rips in my jeans, remembering that they were Tim's hand-me-downs. In the midst of the dark and the pain and the silent beating that the Brumly boys were dishing out, I'd seen so clear that moment when he gave them to me, saw him toss the jeans at me and laugh and slap me round the head playfully, heard him saying "Your gonna be too big to fit into my old clothes soon" and I'd felt both proud and scared at the thought of being bigger than Tim.

I had thought of how at night Tim would give me a sudden, surprising smile, touch his hand to my shoulder and say "night kid." I thought of the girls that gave me shy, half scared smiles in the streets, the little kids that followed me to the dairy asking to be in my gang. I thought of how in the mornings I'd stand in the shower with my eyes shut and the hot water beating down on my head and think of the day ahead and for that moment I would feel that nothing could ever touch me.

I'd always thought I had no life of my own, but I realized suddenly that I was wrong, that a life of my own was all that I had.

And with that something had swelled in me, the will to live, the desperate longing for the life that was mine, for Tim who was everyone's hero or enemy but no ones brother but mine.

So I fought for it then, I tried to stand and I tried to fight for all the things I had that I would miss, and in the end when the pain was too much I pulled my arms up over my head, I curled around myself and I hoped it had not all been too late.

"Curly, you remember?" asked Ponyboy again.

"Nah, not really" I said.

"I wanted to stay" Pony said. "I didn't wanna leave you, but I knew that me and you couldn't fight all them off."

"Its okay man" I said, because it was. I remembered that, me shoving Pony, his legs moving so fast as he ran for his brothers, ran to get help, to save my skin, and to save his own. Because when it came down to it, we all thought our own lives were worth saving, even me.

"It's just as well you did" said Darry. "Curly probably wouldn't have made it if I didn't get him to the hospital when I did, the way he was loosing blood."

Pony turned his head a little to look up at his brother, and I wondered for a minute if that was how I looked at Tim. I sure as hell hoped not, I hoped my brother couldn't see how much I wanted to make him proud, how much I believed in him.

I turned my head to the other side to look at Tim again, wondering if he was mad at Pony for leaving me like that. He shoved his cigarette in his mouth again and glanced briefly at Pony.

"Darry's right" he said his tone mild. "The doctors said as much."

Darry shoved his hands in his pockets and smiled, looking almost grateful.

"You hear?" he said quietly to Ponyboy. Then he looked up at Tim.

"Can we talk outside for a minute?" he asked.

Tim nodded and picked up his lighter from where he'd tossed it onto the cabinet beside my bed.

"Don't go nowhere" he said to me as he left, and I rolled my eyes at the joke and laughed when I saw Ponyboy doing the same.

"He thinks he's funny" I said dryly to Pony.

"Shit, that ain't so bad, Darry thinks it's funny to make me do my homework on a Friday night" Pony said, and we both laughed. I guess trying to live up to a big brother was one thing me and Pony could understand about each other.

"How's things anyway?" I asked, itching for information. Not that Pony would know shit about the gangs, but he would know more than what Tim was telling me which was sweet fuck all.

"Don't worry about it" was all he'd said when I tried to ask him what was going down, and the look on his face had made me not want to push him.

Pony frowned. "It's getting pretty crazy" he said slowly. "There's a fight every day, greaser against greaser. Darry won't even let me walk home from school by myself right now. Something's gonna have to give."

"Yeah?" I said, and felt that old mix of excited fear at the thought. I wanted to get back out there as bad as Tim did. But then suddenly I remembered the hood that had held the pipe, and I wondered if that was what I really wanted. Did I want to kill the boy I'd seen myself in, seen my brother in? All we were fighting out there was ourselves, each of us our own worst enemy.

The door was suddenly slammed open and my brother stalked in, Darry following behind him.

"What's wrong Tim?" I asked, looking at his stormy expression.

"Nothing" he snapped.

"Come on Pony" Darry said. "We gotta get going."

"Alright," Pony said. "See ya round, Curly."

"Yeah, sure" I said, not taking my eyes off Tim. He was standing by the window again, flexing his fingers into fists by his side.

"Tim, what's wrong?" I asked again as the Curtis boys left.

Tim shook his head and gave a short, low laugh, faked a punch at the window.

"Goddamn, he's lucky he I owe him one" he muttered.

"What, whose lucky?" I asked.

"Darry, that son of a bitch" he said, turning to face me and leaning back against the window. He shook his head again, smiling in a disbelieving way.

"He told me not to go after Brumly, he told me to make a truce. Can you fucking believe it?"

"Yeah?" I murmered, sliding my eyes away from my brother, looking down at my arms resting by my side with their web of tubes. I thought about going home again, how much I wanted to go home, how much I wanted Tim to be there when I did. I didn't want him to go back inside, I wanted our life back that we'd had so long ago, when it was me and him and the gang and the girls, it was fun back then, like kids play compared to what it had become.

"Tim, maybe he's right" I said carefully, raising my eyes to look at him.

"What the hell?" Tim said. "Jesus Christ Curly, you think I'm gonna let them walk away from what they done to you?"

I was glad of all the morphine flowing through my blood, I never would have dreamed of questioning Tim without it.

"What about what I want?" I asked him.

* * *

A/N; Thanks everyone who reviewed and for your comments, I'm glad you like the way the story is going it made me feel better about it. Sorry for the slow updates lately I'm working two jobs right now so in between working and sleeping I don't have a whole lot of time! Thanks for still reading, I'll try and move it along faster. 


	16. Old habits die hard

Curly's POV

"You ready yet?" Tim asked impatiently, flicking his fist idly and repetitively against the window.

"Yeah, hang on…" I muttered, still struggling with my tee-shirt. I'd managed to haul on my jeans on easy enough but my shirt wasn't proving so easy. My healing wounds hurt like hell when I tried to lift my arms.

"Christ sake" Tim snapped, stalking over to me and grabbing my shirt out of my hands.

"Aw Tim, I thought ya only pulled clothes off girls" I said, joking to cover my shame as he put my arms through the sleeves and pulled it over my head.

"There's a first time for everything" he said dryly, giving me a small smile, like he understood how I felt.

Somehow it hadn't bothered me having the nurses doing everything for me while I was laid up in bed, but Tim having to help me like this was shameful beyond anything.

"Right, lets go" he said, grabbing his car keys from the bedside cabinet and walking out of the room without a second glance.

I took a minute to look around the hospital room I'd spent the last week in, and I hoped it was the last I'd ever see of it.

It felt strange to be out walking around again as I followed Tim down the corridors of the hospital. Strange to be limping along behind my swaggering brother, seeing the looks that people gave us as we passed them, the way they cringed away from us with both fear and hate on their faces. Strange to come out of that fight for my life and still be nothing but a hoodlum.

I walked out of the hospital doors and into the bright afternoon, and as I descended the steps I remembered another nightmare afternoon, the day I had stood on those steps and watch the police surround my brother, watch them level their guns at him. I had felt like I was watching the end of the world, because to me it was. And then Tim had turned to me, and it was me he was looking at, not the police, as he raised his hands and surrendered himself.

"Curly!" Tim yelled, and I snapped out of my memories to see my brother standing by his car.

I walked to the car slowly, enjoying the feeling of being outside, back out in the summer with the sun hot above me and the smell of car fumes and melting asphalt. It was like heaven after a week on the wards with only the reek of antiseptic.

"Let's get the hell out of here" Tim said as he started up the car, a determined set to his jaw.

I wondered what he had planned, thinking again of the talk about revenge that we'd had the day Darry and Ponyboy came, the talk that we hadn't brought up since.

"_What about what I want?" _I'd asked my brother through the dreamy haze of morphine, and watched his lips curl in a sneer of disgust as he stared at me like he was seeing a stranger.

"_What the hell's wrong with you boy?" _he'd asked, and under his angry tone he'd sounded bewildered. I was prepared to deal with his anger, but somehow it was seeing him confused that threw me more.

Whatever else I'd been going to say had slipped from my mind, so I'd just looked at him in silence, watched him turn and walk out the door without another word to me. He'd come back late that night, woken me up as he leaned on my bed and breathed liquor over me.

He'd grabbed my chin and turned me toward him, his fingers digging into my jaw so hard I felt like he was going to break it, leaning over me with the reek of whisky and smoke.

"_I promised you" _he'd slurred, his smile on me hard and bitter, mean. _"Whatever you want…" _and his words had trailed off, he'd shook his head a little and released me suddenly. I'd stared at him through the dark and shadows, his figure lit dimly by the green light of the oxygen tank as he stood by my bed.

"_What, Tim?"_ I'd whispered to him, and the warm night air seemed dense and heavy as it filled the small space between me and my brother.

He'd blinked and looked down at me, like he hadn't realized I was awake despite the vice grip he'd just put me in.

"_I never could keep a promise, Curly" _he'd said, his tone so old and sad it made me ache deeper than all the wounds I carried.

It seemed like a dream now; it had already seemed like a dream at the time. Maybe it was, that didn't seem like anything that Tim would ever say, no matter how much booze he'd sunk.

"You hungry?" Tim asked me. "You wanna go get some real food after that crap you been eating for a week?"

"Hell yeah" I replied, thinking of the meals up at the hospital that had been made for people too old or sick or both to chew, stews and soups and mashed vegetables.

"I'm just gonna get some smokes" Tim said, hauling the car to a stop outside a drugstore. I leaned my head against the pillar of the car, watching the street outside, watching people walking by, feeling content. The nurses had loaded me up with percodan after taking away the morphine drip, and it made everything kind of soft and hazy, no hard edges. A good way to be.

I thought about Tim, wondering why he couldn't ever just be still and happy, why he had to keep on trying to claim everything that he saw. I guess that was why he was the leader though, why everyone followed him, because he was going to get us everything we never had.

We went to a diner downtown and ordered food, hamburgers and fries and milkshakes. At first I was hungry as hell, but about halfway through all the food started churning in my guts. It wasn't always easy to eat on heavy painkillers, not that I was complaining. I got a kick out of getting high legally, and even Tim couldn't say nothing about it.

Tim was silent as he ate, gazing down into his plate as if he were deep in thought. I pushed my own plate away, lit up a cigarette and sat back watching Tim.

"What are you thinking about?" I asked him.

"Nothing" he said briefly through a mouthful of food.

I waited for him to say something else, and when it became clear he wasn't going to I tried again.

"Is everything cool?"

He just looked at me and shrugged a little, his eyes blank and still, staring right through me as if I were no one he knew.

I tried to remember how he had held onto me at the hospital, how through the dark I had felt his hard and wordless love and leaned toward it. But now he was looking at me like I was just another someone who stood between him and what he wanted, someone to be pushed aside.

"What's' up Tim?" I asked him sharply, glaring at him, because he was my brother and he owed me more than this.

He shook his head, one corner of his mouth turning in a smile. "Just eat your lunch kid" he said, like I was a child, like I was one of his boys to be ordered around.

He was sitting right across from me and somehow seemed further away than he'd ever been. I thought of that afternoon not long ago when I'd gone to pick him up from prison and the nervous hope and excitement that had churned in my guts. Everything had seemed so bright right then, like maybe this time it could be like I always had wanted it to be. I was sixteen after all, not the kid I'd been, and surely he'd see that.

But then he'd looked at me with the same hard, dismissive stare, his eyes barely brushing over me, and in that moment he'd knocked me straight back into childhood.

I was sick of this, sick of being the one following him around, trying to second guess him, trying to figure out what he wanted from me, what he wanted me to be. I was sick of being pushed away when all I ever wanted was to make him proud, to make him love me.

I got up from the table and heard him saying "Where the hell are you going?" and his tone was both annoyed and amused.

I kept walking toward the door, not caring if he was mad, not caring what he thought. Fuck it. Let him be the one to come after me this time.

Tim's POV

I rolled my eyes as Curly slammed out the door of the restaurant, wondering what he was packing a shit over. I carried on eating my fries, it wasn't like he was going to go anywhere, and I had better things to worry about at this point in time. It had been a week now since Curly had been hurt, and I couldn't wait any longer to retaliate if I wanted to keep the good name and reputation I'd worked so hard to earn.

That was where I ran into my problem, and I sparked up a cigarette and leaned back in my seat to think over it now that I had some time to myself without Curly interrupting me. I knew what I had to do and I knew what I wanted to do, but every time I started to make a mental plan I would remember Curly that day in the hospital asking me _"what about what I want?"_

For reasons that I couldn't even begin to imagine, let alone understand, he didn't want to go after Shane. Not that what Curly or anyone else wanted had ever meant shit to me, but Curly was walking around alive when only a week ago I had thought he would never wake up again, and it made me feel some weird indulgence toward him, the same feeling as when I promised him the world if only he would live.

He was probably still just shook up about what had happened, I figured. In a couple of days he'd come to his senses and see that I could do nothing less than go after Brumly.

I went out to the car, thinking I should get him home. The doctor had made me swear up and down I'd look after him and make him take it easy before I signed his discharge papers.

But Curly wasn't waiting by the car as I'd expected.

"Fuck" I hissed under my breath, glancing around the lot for him. Hell I wanted to keep all the promises I'd made him about not yelling and that all that, but he made it so hard when he did so much dumb shit.

I walked out to the street and looked around for him again, then trusted my instincts and headed in the direction of the Dingo. I knew the first thing I'd wanna do if I'd just spent a week in hospital.

He couldn't walk so fast still I guess because I found him in no time, wandering up the street not even half way to the Dingo.

"The hell you doing?" I snapped angrily, coming up behind him and grabbing his arm.

He turned toward me, looking tired and mad, his hair plastered down on his forehead. He yanked his arm out of my grip, staring at me with baleful eyes.

"I ain't a kid no more Tim" he said. Whatever he might think, he sure as hell looked like a kid right then. He was pale after his hospital stay, and swayed on his feet as he glared at me under the hot sun.

"You sick is what you are, get your butt back to the car" I said softly but leaving no room for disagreement.

I guess old habits die hard because despite himself he obeyed me straight away and turned to follow me back to the car.

We both walked in silence, I had the feeling Curly was waiting for something but I wasn't inclined to try and figure out what it was. I'd been too soft on him while he was in hospital, letting get away with mouthing off, saying shit he wouldn't normally dare to say, because it was just too hard to get mad when I was so fucking relieved. Well he couldn't be half dead everyday, and it was time to bring him back into line.

"Get in the car" I told him shortly back in the lot. He just stood by the passenger door staring at me with hollow looking eyes, not making a move.

"Curly, get in the fucking car" I repeated, annoyance and anger building up. I never stood for disobedience, I couldn't if I wanted to be in charge, but Curly had always managed to get away with pushing me further than any of my boys would have. Because he was my brother, at the end of the day. It was an inescapable fact, he was the one person I truly loved in this world, and for that reason I just waited when anyone else would have had their ass knocked to the ground.

I wasn't going to stand there and argue with him in the fucking parking lot, so I walked around the side of the car and stood beside him.

"Let's get home huh" I said to him, trying to remain patient. I reminded myself that he was still badly injured, that he was doped up on painkillers.

"I don't want everything to be the same Tim" he said, leaning his head back against the wall of the diner behind him, looking so tired out for someone who was barely sixteen.

"I know" I said, because somehow I did. He wanted something more than this, fighting and prison and hospitals and funerals. He turned his head toward me, looking at me with that old expression, like I was the one that could save him.

But then he shook his head a little, smiled and said, "But you're just the same."

I was confused, what the hell was that supposed to mean? I sighed and leaned up against the wall beside him, feeling as tired as he looked right then.

"Hey, fuck this" Curly said abruptly, his tone languid despite his words. "Let's just go get drunk or something."

He glanced at me and gave me a smile, and it was his old smile too, the one that told me I was his hero, his greatest friend, everything he had ever wanted. For a second I wondered if there was something in that thought, something I should be getting, but I shoved it aside.

"I'm right with you there man" I said, despite the fact I had no intention of letting him drink with the pills he was taking, I just wanted him to get in the damn car.

"I'm gonna lift a new engine for this piece of shit tomorrow night" I said as the car coughed to life, and Curly laughed and said "I'm right with you there man."

I felt better, uplifted, and it was fucking pathetic that I was letting the whims of my kid brother affect me like this, but I guess that was just the way it was. Push comes to shove, there ain't nothing I wouldn't do for that kid.

* * *

A/N: Yeah, Curly being in the hospital was getting pretty boring right? I was bored so I moved it along a bit. Sorry for Ponyboy etc not being in this chapter, but there'll be more of them in the next one. Thanks so much for the reviews I really enjoy getting them and hearing what you think. 


	17. Revenge

Curly's POV

The slant of the setting sun through the window cast us all in gold, me and Tim and the Vipers president Kane, and Beth and her boyfriend Chris. We were sitting in the living room of our house, and it felt good to be home. It felt good to watch the shadows fall across the faded wallpaper, to trail the smoke from my cigarette as it curled toward the ceiling, and to watch my brother saunter around the room as king of this falling castle.

I took another swig of the one beer that Tim had allowed me, watching Beth as she walked across the room to get another drink from the kitchen, watching the swing of her hips in tight jeans.

"Beth!" Tim called out, stretched back lazily in the sofa with a bottle of Bourban resting in his lap. "Get my smokes of the counter would ya?"

Beth turned in the doorway and gave him a slow smile. "Don't you know smokings bad for you?"

Tim cocked his bottle toward his mouth, his stare on her dark and lingering. "Not as bad as I could be" he said.

I shot a quick look across at Chris, wondering what he was making of this, of his girlfriend and my brothers blatant want for each other. He was rolling a cigarette with fixed concentration, the black part of his eye so tiny it was barely there. I wondered if Tim knew they were all whacked out on smack, if he recognized the signs. If he had noticed he didn't seem bothered by it, although he'd downed most of a bottle of bourbon by himself so maybe he wasn't in a state to be noticing other people's bad habits.

I wished he'd quit noticing mine so much right about now though, despite his drunkenness he hadn't given in on not letting me drink. I'd swallowed a couple of extra percodan on my last dose though, so I wasn't feeling too bad about it.

The empty bottles from the twelve pack of beer Chris and Kane had been steadily working their way through littered the upturned crate that served as a coffee table. They were drinking slowly, probably not wanting to dilute the morphine that flowed through their blood stream.

Beth came back into the room and handed Tim his cigarettes, bending low over him, and he put his hand on her thigh carelessly, smiled smugly to himself. It was just like him to want the girl he wasn't supposed to have, better she had a boyfriend, better yet that the boyfriend was a junkie hood who'd once dragged a man from his car and kicked him half to death for cutting him off. I didn't need a crystal ball to know that if Beth ever dumped Chris she'd loose most of the appeal that she held for Tim.

I drank the last of my beer and put the empty bottle down, looked over at Tim who second guessed me before I could open my mouth and shook his head slightly. I'd first gotten drunk on my thirteenth birthday while Tim and Dally looked on with mild amusement; I'd never had to put up with being told how much I was allowed to drink before.

I wanted to argue with him, but that would only make me look like a kid in front of the other boys, when I'd spent the last year trying to prove to them that I wasn't.

"You know what?" Tim said with his bottle half raised to his mouth for another drink. "I'm bored as fuck."

"So what are we gonna do Tim?" Kane asked, looking more alert suddenly. He sat forward when Tim didn't reply, staring at him closely.

"You know what we should do; we should do something about this fucking Brumly crew…" his tone was both eager and goading, implying that he thought Tim should have gone after Brumly days ago.

I thought of the way I'd asked Tim not to take revenge, wondering about it but not really believing that could be stopping him. What I wanted had never figured anything into Tim's actions.

But right then with the hard and waiting eagerness of Kane and Chris, I thought about just what I had asked him to do. They had hurt me to get to him, and if he didn't do anything about it than his reign as king of the Tulsa turf was over. That was all there was to it. No one would care that he was risking prison; if he let that disrespect be gotten away with no one would ever forget it. Not the boys in our outfit, not the Vipers and not Brumly, not any of the hoods and greasers on the streets.

"Yeah" Tim said idly, stretching his arms above his head and looking over at me. "I think maybe it's time to turn over the house of these boys."

Something jumped in my guts right then, adrenalin suddenly filling me. Tim was rolling drunk, Kane and Chris were bombed out of their brains, I was hours out of hospital, and the talk had turned to action. Despite myself, I was getting excited. This was what it used to be like, getting liquored up, going out and roaming the streets looking for fights, looking for trouble, busting car windows, busting down doors, busting heads.

That was when I felt invincible; no one could touch me because I was touching them first, coming up on them with a blade and a gang, coming in the dark just like they came for me.

Tim lowered his arms to pick up his bottle again and take a long swallow, not taking his eyes of me as he did so, a question in his gaze.

He was waiting for me to say something. Waiting for me to give him the word. _"Let's go Tim!" _he wanted me to say. I felt frozen, suddenly given power by brother who had controlled our lives so absolutely.

Tim just watched me, his face blank as he put his rep and his gang and everything he'd ever cared about on the line just for me. That was how much he trusted me to act as his equal, to not let him down

"Tim…" I said and stopped, because I didn't know what I wanted anymore. I'd followed my brother all my life, and I'd watched him fight his way to the top with both pride and envy, wishing I could be like him but happy enough just to be near him, to be his brother.

Tim was still looking at me, something in his expression cold and remorseless. It occurred to me that maybe this wasn't for love, maybe he was just trying to force my hand, to make it impossible for me to say no.

"You know what?" I said, suddenly angry, slamming my fist down on the table. "I'll take them out myself, I don't need you to fight for me Tim. I done it on my own for a year ain't I?"

Tim smirked slightly. "Yeah, you're a real fucking menace kid" and he touched his hand to his own chest to indicate my injuries. "You wanna go back to the hospital?"

"So what?" I challenged. "Your gonna be back where you wanna be, in that prison."

"I see" Tim said in a strange, flat tone, implicit understanding in his eyes suddenly. And guilt. I felt my anger softening. I was starting to see he was a selfish son of a bitch most of the time, that he would stop at nothing to get what he wanted, but I was also starting to see how much he loved me.

Tim stood up abruptly and picked up his car keys.

"Revenge'll have to wait boys" he said to Kane and Chris. "I just remembered I got some business to take care of."

I followed him out the house to the car, figuring he'd kill himself or get picked up if he tried to drive in this state.

"Gimme the keys Tim" I said, and he turned to toss them to me, giving me a smile, hard and wondering and proud.

Ponyboy's POV

I watched the lights of the city blinking on as the sun set lower, feeling uncomfortable in the backseat of Steve's car. He had made it clear he was not impressed with Two-Bit bringing me along.

"Damn, what'd you bring the kid for?" he'd snapped when he hauled up to the Dingo. "I got business to take care of."

Two-Bit had laughed easily and climbed in the front seat, saying "I always bring the kid when I pick up chicks; they love a guy that don't mind babysitting."

Steve had muttered something under his breath about Darry killing him, which seemed a strange thing for him to say. Darry knew I was out with Two-Bit and we were going to the nightly double to hang out, but first he'd made me promise I would stick with Two-Bit and stay away from any trouble. Tension was still simmering all over the city, and pretty soon it had to reach boiling point. It made me feel nervous. Everyone was just waiting for Tim to make his move, and the longer he left it the more we could only assume he was plotting some huge and terrible vengeance.

Steve pulled into the parking lot and started circling around, searching for something.

"There's a park" I pointed out helpfully, and he shook his head and made a hissing noise of annoyance.

"You see Tim's car anywhere?" he asked Two-Bit.

"Hell, what car's he driving today?" Two-Bit cracked.

Tim? As in Tim Shepard? I looked at Steve again, wondering what business he could possibly have with Tim. All I could think of was the revenge that was to be taken on the Brumly boys, for some reason Steve had some part of it. And now I was here too, and I was going to end up in the midst of some gang brawl, probably with heaters and pipe bombs, probably end up an accomplice to murder…

"There" Two-Bit said as my imagination ran wild, and I saw Tim and Curly standing beside a car, both smoking and talking to a couple of other hoods who I didn't recognize. Steve stopped his car nearby and Tim walked over to us while Curly and his friends stayed standing by their car.

"Boys" Tim greeted us briefly, and Steve nodded in reply. Tim stood straight with his thumbs hooked in the belt loops of his jeans, a cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth and the smell of liquor clinging to him. I had always thought he looked the image of a JD, and he did even more so after hard time, but I had seen another side to him too, up at the hospital.

"Pony, Two-Bit, I'll see you round" Tim said, a dismissal if I ever saw one. We both moved away and went to stand by Tim's car, and I glanced back to see Tim and Steve getting into his car.

I glanced at Curly, wondering what was going on, but he was looking after his brother with a puzzled expression, seemingly none the wiser than I was about what they were doing. I felt relieved though, I figured if there was going to be a revenge attack then Curly would be the first to know, well next to Tim at least.

"How you doing?" I asked Curly.

"Good, man" he said casually, flicking his cigarette butt away. "I'm fucking glad to be outta that hospital."

"So, what do you reckon Curly?" asked the hood beside him, an impatient note to his voice.

"What?" Curly asked, shifting his weight and looking distracted.

"What I just said, man. About that big party the Brumly boys are having tonight, why don't we go pay them a visit?"

Curly was turned away from him, toward me, so I guess only I saw the resigned look on his face. He looked hurt and tired out.

"Maybe" he said without much enthusiasm. "See what Tim says…"

"Hey!" the hood suddenly pushed himself off the side of the car and stood in front of Curly. "Fuck waiting for Tim, he ain't done shit man. He's had a week to move and he ain't done nothing…"

He trailed off because Curly was paying him no attention at all, he was staring off over his shoulder, his expression as unreadable as his brothers ever was.

"Looks like the party came here" Curly said softly, and his eyes suddenly shone bright despite his tired stance.

* * *

A/N; Thanks for reading I hope your still enjoying the story. Thanks to everyone who reviewed I appreciate hearing what you think. Sorry if there is heaps of mistakes in that chapter I have the flu so bad right now and probably just did a crap edit. 


	18. The unforgiven

Curly's POV

I watched them approach across the lot, holding myself carefully straight, trying not the feel the hot throbbing pain under my ribs. Ponyboy stood beside me chewing on his lip, throwing me sideways glances, and several meters away I could see just the dark outline of my brother as he sat in Steve's car.

The Brumly boys looked like they were on the way to that party that Greg had mentioned, they had several girls with them and carried twelve packs of beer, whooping and shoving each other playfully as they walked.

It wasn't none of the ones that had put me in hospital, but I knew that wouldn't matter a damn to Tim, or to anyone else for that matter.

"Son's of bitches" Greg hissed, smacking a fist into his palm as he spoke.

"Yeah" I agreed, watching them, trying to raise the level of hate I needed to fight past the pain of my injuries. It wasn't happening, too much like staring into a mirror as I watched them approach, waited for them to see me. It was simple dumb luck or fate or whatever that had seen me in the hospital and them put me there, any other day it could have been me sending them in the hospital. God knows Shane Buchanan spent enough time there getting stitched back together after I went after him with that tire iron.

Even so, I slid my hand into my back pocket and folded it around my switchblade. I still had pride after all, and I was a Shepard too.

"You suckers laughing on the way to your own funeral!" Greg yelled out to them, and they came to a halt in a shambling line, the girls still hanging off the boys arms.

I saw them look over to Greg and then to me, saw them look at each other warily. Because I was a Shepard, after all. My rep wasn't only what my brother made it.

I pulled my blade out and flipped it open, held it ready at my side. But I didn't just feel the hot excitement that I normally did before a fight, a hundred different thoughts crowded my head so that I couldn't think about anything clearly. I was just out of hospital and I knew I couldn't fight; I was still half doped on the kick-ass painkillers the nurses dished out like candy. And Tim couldn't fight because he was just out of jail, he was on parole. I didn't want him going back inside, I would have done almost anything to stop it happening.

"You get out of hospital huh?" one of them commented, looking over at me, and for some reason that struck them as funny and they all laughed.

Two-Bit shifted his weight beside me, a smile twitching on his lips too.

"Maybe we better call the hospital and tell him to send over the ambulance to pick up a bunch of boys from Brumly" he suggested.

I heard a car door slam, and looked over to see Tim stepping out of Steve's car, stand beside it for a moment looking over toward Brumly.

He strolled over to stand in front of me, regarding them with his thumbs hitched in his pockets.

"Shane sending you out to do his work?" he asked them, sounding sober enough despite how much I'd seen him drinking earlier.

The boys looked at each other, none of them looking like they was itching to be the first to take my brother on.

Everyone fell silent for a moment, the rumble of engines as other cars drove around, the talking and laughing of other kids, all seemed a world away. It was really, because we were all off in our own world here, a world that existed on asphalt under streetlights, a world that seemed to have no other light but the shine of headlights and the glow of cigarettes, a world that stood still and silent and waited for someone to make their move.

"Yeah, and the work'll be short" one of the boys said into the long, stretched out silence, stepping forward with his hand in his pocket.

"Can't be shorter than the work I made of Shane" Tim said mildly, seeming amused more than anything. I guess he didn't see them as his real enemy, they were nothing really, just kids at the bottom of the gang chain of command, kids that Tim would probably think were beneath him to fight.

The kid whipped out a switchblade and held it out as he approached, his friends crowding in behind.

"Watch you don't cut yourself" Tim said in a soft but warning tone. Two-Bit snorted with laughter beside me.

"Oh man, can you believe this?" he asked me rhetorically.

I couldn't really, but I guess he was just a punk trying to make a name for himself, no different to most all of us.

Tim turned to look at me, shaking his head with an almost fed up expression despite his smirk, like he thought what he was about to do was ridiculous. I guess it was a long time since he'd had sixteen year old kids trying to take him on.

The kid leaped forward while Tim's back was turned, slashing haphazardly toward my brother with his blade. Tim dodged the strike easily and stepped in close enough to grab the kids arm and twist it up behind his back.

"Let go of it" he snarled, while the kid grimaced in pain but kept his hand clenched around his knife.

The rest of us stood in our disorganized lines, watching them wrestle for the knife, Two-Bit laughing between taking long swallows of his beer.

Tim had gotten the kid to the ground and wrenched the knife out of his hand, tossed it aside. As he did so one of the boys friends suddenly rushed forward to help, grabbing Tim from behind and aiming a fist toward his jaw.

Even as Tim threw him off another came forward, and I reached out to snatch the beer from Two-Bits hand as he raised it to his mouth, smashed the top off against the car and waded in to the growing mass of bodies.

The rest of the Brumly boys had jumped in, and I saw Steve beside me as I brought down the bottle across the head of one of the boys. He went down and one of them jumped on me from behind, I felt the pain flare up hot inside me as I was hauled to the ground, and for a moment it hurt so bad I could only close my eyes and curl into the rough gravel.

I tried to stand and someone swung their boot into my ribs, and the pain when it exploded inside was like a living thing that could eat me alive. I shut my eyes again, listening to the grunts and yells and smacking fists above me, trying to hold onto it because the darkness was pulling at me, but I had to get up.

I pulled my knees up under me and half sat up, and then someone grabbed my shoulder and hauled me the rest of the way to my feet.

"You alright Curly?" Tim asked me, keeping a grip on me.

"Yeah" I said, trying to breath, trying to blink away the tears of pain that burned in my eyes.

"Goddamn bastards" he swore viciously. Two-Bit and Ponyboy came up, Ponyboy wiping at his mouth with his sleeve.

"That was a waste of beer" Two-Bit said mournfully to me. "Couldn't you have used your blade?"

I attempted a grin, leaning into Tim as the pain throbbed inside, I felt like I was going to puke, or pass out, and neither of those were the sort of things tough hoods do after a fight.

The Brumly boys hadn't left quite yet, they were hanging back, wandering away slowly but turning to call out insults or threats every few steps.

Tim didn't pay them any mind, while Two-Bit and Steve yelled back at the Brumly boys, he grabbed my chin and tilted my face toward him.

"You sure you alright?" he asked me under his breath, knowing I could never admit to pain in front of the other boys. It just wasn't the way things worked. If you were tough you never felt pain, you were never hurt, you were never scared or lonely, and you sure as hell never cried when your big brother went to prison.

"Can we go home?" I asked him, and he nodded, giving me a look that was bleak and weary, his arm tight around my shoulders, the closest thing to a hug he'd ever given me.

I felt so tired, I wanted to just lean my head against him, I wanted to tell him that none of this mattered, this was one fight that no one would come out of a winner, I didn't want him to look at me like I was the burden he carried through life.

"This ain't over" Tim said, staring after Brumly, his eyes fixed on some distant point, like there was a place we could come out of this if he just kept fighting.

At home I lay on my bed, staring at the stained ceiling and wondering how the hell a ceiling could get so dirty when it ain't like nobody ever walked on it. I tried not to flinch while Tim lifted my shirt and checked that none of the stitches had ripped out, giving me a brief nod of reassurance.

"What are we gonna do?" I asked him as he pulled my shirt back down and stayed seated on the bed.

"Shane's the one I gotta settle this with" Tim said, his smile grim. "I gotta take that sucker down, then this will be over."

"You beat him twice already" I pointed out.

"Not good enough, it seems" Tim replied, and he suddenly looked brighter, like the upcoming battle was something to look forward to.

"You know if you don't kill him he's gonna keep on coming" I said, not knowing why the thought of it made me feel so much despair. "He'll probably kill you if he gets the chance."

Tim shrugged, not looking concerned.

"Dunno about that" he replied distractedly. "Why don't you get some sleep, huh?"

He left the room, flicking the light off and shutting the door behind him. I lay still and tried to relax, there had been gang fights before and there would be again. As long as no one got killed, or at least as long as it was no one that my brother killed, things would settle down again and everything would be just like it had been. There would be me and Tim and the boys, and we would drink and party and jump people and joyride in cars, I would follow my brother, try to make him proud, to get his attention, just like it had always been.

I stared through the crack in the curtains out at the sky, at the sliver of moon and the dots of stars. That same sky I used to look up at when he was inside, knowing that when he got out everything would be alright again, there wouldn't be that cold, hollowed out place inside myself that was so deep down and ached so bad.

I watched the clean gleam of the moon, for a moment wondering what it might have been like to have some other life. But in any other life, I wouldn't have been Tim's brother, and for all the shit I had ate, I wouldn't have had it any other way.

I touched my hand to my ribs, pressing the bruised places and feeling the stab of pain that was both bitter and satisfying. I remembered sitting in church with my mother as a little kid, Tim beside me seething with boredom, and I wondered if it was true what the preacher used to say about God forgiving all sinners.

I remembered when I thought I was dying, how there had been nothing but black all around. But I could only hope that the end, when it truly came, might be more just that long fall into the dark, that there might be something waiting on the other side.


End file.
